Mr. Robert Farnell is the senior specialist Consultant Orthopaedic Hand and Wrist Surgeon working at the Leeds General Infirmary. He has over 20 years experience in hand and wrist surgery and 25 years in orthopaedic surgery.
Mr. Farnell's undergraduate medical training was in London where he qualified with an MB BS in 1990. He continued his surgical training in London becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1995.
Mr. Farnell moved back to his native Yorkshire in 1996 to continue his higher surgical training in orthopaedic surgery. In 2001 he passed the FRCS(Trauma and Orth) examination and for the final years of training, he concentrated work on surgery of the hand and wrist, which included several fellowships. He was the national hand fellow in Leeds for one year before working as a microsurgical fellow learning to operate using a microscope. Later he worked as an AO hand fellow in America in the internationally recognised centres at Indianapolis and Louisville. Mr. Farnell has obtained his certificate of completion of specialist surgical training (CCST) and he is listed on the specialist register.
Mr Farnell was appointed as a consultant hand and wrist surgeon in Leeds and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Leeds in 2002 where he works as a specialist surgeon treating conditions affecting the hand and wrist. In addition to the treatment of common complaints, he provides a service for the management of complex conditions that are referred from other surgeons throughout the region.
Mr. Farnell is actively involved in training. He supervises the training and appointments of the national hand fellows and he is a member of the AO faculty, teaching trainees and other consultants in fracture fixation techniques. He is an examiner for the specialist hand examination, the Hand Diploma and he spent 4 years on the Education and Training Committee for the British Society of the Hand. He has written chapters in a number of Orthopaedic text books and has published in the scientific journals. He is the founder and secretary of the Yorkshire Wrist Society, which provides a forum for other orthopaedic surgeons to meet and discuss complex cases. He teaches surgical trainees on hand surgery in the Royal College of Surgeons hand courses in London. He is a member of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand, the European Wrist Arthroscopy Society and the British Medical Association. In his spare time Mr Farnell enjoys playing golf and is a member of the Alwoodley Golf Club.
Areas of expertise:
HAND: peripheral nerve entrapment, Dupuytrens disease, trigger finger, arthritis of the hand and thumb and hand trauma.
WRIST: All trauma particularly fractures of the distal radius and scaphoid bone, wrist arthritis, wrist arthroscopy, scaphoid non-union, wrist ligament injuries, correction of mal-united wrist fractures and wrist pain.