Wing Commander Paul Hindle

Biography

Dr. Paul Hindle specializes in upper extremity reconstruction, aiming to restore function from shoulder to hand. He operates and covers acute call at St. Paul’s Hospital, his clinics are based at the Footbridge Centre for Integrated Orthopaedic Care. Dr. Hindle spent 21 years serving in the Royal Air Force before emigrating to Vancouver in 2022 with his family. He trained at the University of Edinburgh where he completed his residency, PhD in regenerative medicine and his upper limb fellowship before undertaking a complex trauma fellowship at the University of Toronto. Before moving to Canada, he worked as an upper limb specialist at a level one trauma centre and was the head of orthopaedics for the Royal Air Force and the lead of the Defence Upper Limb Working Group, responsible for getting service personnel back to the highest levels of activity following upper limb trauma or elective reconstruction. He was an associate professor before moving to Canada and continues research projects into the genetic and cellular mechanisms of injury as well as amputee research focusing on osseointegration. His research grants total around $2M and his work continues with his collaborators at the University of Birmingham and Imperial University, London. He was selected as the Canadian Society for Surgery of the Hand representative for the American Society for Surgery of the Hand international travelling fellowship in 2023. This allowed him to travel to centres of excellence across the USA to meet and collaborate with leaders in the field of hand and wrist surgery. During his appointment working at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in the United Kingdom he became a specialist in amputee care. He is one of a handful of surgeons in the world able to perform transcutaneous osseointegration that allows amputees to directly anchor prosthetics into their skeleton avoiding the use of traditional socket suspension. He is married with two young daughters, as a family they enjoy an active lifestyle and have travelled extensively. As well as spending time with his family he enjoys sports and is a very keen skier, including touring in the back country. His other sports include mountain biking, stand up paddle boarding, scuba diving, kite surfing and golf. He is a member at Point Grey Golf and Country Club. He is an enthusiastic chef who enjoys cooking for friends and family.