Edward Akelman, M.D. is the Chief of the Hand, Upper Extremity and Microvascular Surgery Division of the Department of Orthopaedics at Rhode Island Hospital. He is Professor and Vice Chairman of Orthopaedics at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.  Dr. Akelman devotes his practice to hand, wrist and elbow injuries.   He has expertise in caring for common hand problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome as well as fractures, sports injuries, arthritis, and nerve problems of the hand, wrist and elbow.

Dr. Akelman is a graduate of Princeton University and Dartmouth Medical School. He completed his orthopaedic training at Yale New Haven Hospital. He subsequently completed a hand fellowship at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.

Dr. Akelman is President-Elect of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.   He is chairman of the Council on Education of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) and also serves on the AAOS Board of Directors.  Dr. Akelman is past president of the New England Hand Society and Rhode Island Orthopaedic Society.  He has served as president of the Staff Association of Rhode Island Hospital and has served on the Board of Trustees of Rhode Island Hospital.  He currently heads the Orthopaedic departmental committee responsible for implementation and planning of resident core curriculum for the Department of Orthopaedics. He has three times been chosen by orthopaedic residents and medical students to receive the Department of Orthopaedics Teaching Award, as recent as June 2011.  He is Director of the Brown University / University Orthopedics Hand Surgery Fellowship.

Dr. Akelman’s research interests include nerve compression syndromes of the upper extremities, wrist and carpal kinematics and radiocarpal injuries, He has written extensively on hand surgical conditions in hand surgery journals and chapters in orthopaedic and hand surgery textbooks and teaches and lectures throughout the world regarding hand, wrist and elbow surgery. Dr. Akelman is a former associate editor of both the Journal of Hand Surgery and the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery.