In October 2021, Mount Sinai’s Jaehon M. Kim, MD, FAOS, FAAOS, FACS, developed an effective surgical technique that could lead to significantly improved outcomes for patients who sustain a scapholunate dissociation. His next goal was to create an eight-minute surgical video to train others on the technique. But capturing such a complicated procedure in a short video proved somewhat challenging.
“We went through the footage we shot frame by frame to determine where we should make cuts or introduce pauses to facilitate understanding of how to perform this technique,” says Dr. Kim, Director of the Mount Sinai Hand Fellowship program at the C.V. Starr Hand and Upper Extremity Center at the Mount Sinai Health System and Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “That degree of precision makes all the difference.”
Helped by a team of residents, Dr. Kim’s exacting approach to documenting his technique—modified reduction and association of scaphoid and lunate with internal brace augmentation as a secondary stabilizer—has earned accolades from his peers. The video garnered first-place honors in the Top 10 Video Hand.e Video Theater at the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand in September 2024. It was also named the Best Technique Video of the Year in the Hand and Wrist Section of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Orthopaedic Video Theater for 2025.
“Those awards are validation that our video demonstrates our technique in a way that is clear and concise,” says Dr. Kim, who also serves as Director of the Mount Sinai Orthopaedic Resident Research Committee. “They also offer validation for the surgical technique. The fact that other surgeons have recognized this approach as a great idea is huge for me.”
Modified Reduction and Association of Scaphoid and Lunate with Internal Brace Augmentation as a Secondary Stabilizer
The Procedure
The video, which was produced using footage captured during treatment of a patient who sustained a sports-related injury, demonstrates Dr. Kim’s unique technique, which combines primary and secondary stabilization of the scapholunate joint. He starts with a modified approach to the Reduction and Association of the Scaphoid and Lunate (RASL) procedure, which involves more precise placement of the screw between the scaphoid and lunate bones, followed by implantation of an internal brace to achieve secondary stabilization of the joint.
“The ligament is not a very robust structure,” Dr. Kim says. “Once it is torn, it is hard to achieve appropriate healing because of the tremendous deforming forces of the scaphoid and lunate bones. Furthermore, reconstruction of the secondary stabilizer is difficult and unreliable. Our technique not only repairs the primary stabilizer accurately and precisely but also facilitates reconstruction of a secondary stabilizer in a very quick, efficient manner for improved patient outcomes.”
Dr. Kim estimates that he has achieved a success rate between 80 and 90 percent among the more than 20 patients he has treated using his technique. That is a significant improvement over other commonly performed procedures, such as ligament reconstructions and RASL alone, which he says are associated with a failure rate between 30 and 50 percent.
Dr. Kim and his team at the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand’s award ceremony in Minneapolis in September 2024. Pictured from left: Shariff K. Bishai, MD, FAAOS, Chair of the Orthopaedic Video Theater at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons; Hannah Rhee, MD, Mount Sinai Orthopedic Surgery resident; Dr. Kim; Christine Williams, MD, Mount Sinai Orthopedic Surgery resident; and Zachary Lum, MD, FAAOS, Orthopaedic Video Theater Committee member
A Growing List of Awards
The awards are the latest that Dr. Kim has won for a series of hand surgery videos he has created to demonstrate a range of common and innovative techniques for a peer audience:
Best Technique Video Winner, Orthopaedic Video Theater, 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
First place in “Most Outstanding Video,” Video Theater Abstract, 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand
Three Most Outstanding Video Top 10, Hand.e Video Theater, 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand
Dr. Elton Strauss Award for Orthopaedic Residency Program, Teacher of the Year, 2022, Mount Sinai Orthopaedic Residency Program
Best Video Winner, Orthopaedic Video Theater, 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
Outstanding Video, Hand.e Video Theater, 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand
Although pleased with these results, Dr. Kim is conducting a more comprehensive study to assess the technique’s efficacy by comparing outcomes among this cohort with those from patients who have been treated through stabilization of the primary ligament. He is also interested in gathering more patient data to investigate long-term outcomes. In the meantime, Dr. Kim plans to upload the video to surgeon-focused video platforms to make it more accessible for surgeons and is looking at other opportunities to create surgical technique videos.
“Not all of them are necessarily innovative,” Dr. Kim says. “In some cases, it is just to fill a gap for high-quality videos of common procedures for surgeons to replicate. My goal is to produce several videos each year that we can present to other surgeons.”
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Jaehon Kim, MD
Associate Professor of Orthopedics