Biography

Purushottam Nagarkar, M.D., is a pediatric plastic surgeon at Children's Health specializing in hand surgery. He is an Associatee Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Nagarkar earned his medical degree at UT Southwestern where he also completed his residency. He completed is fellowship in hand and microsurgery at UCLA Medical Center.

His clinical interests include hand and wrist trauma, arthritis, nerve decompression, and Dupuytren's disease

From Dr. Nagarkar - 

Perhaps this is my engineering degree talking, but I believe that surgeons are like specially trained mechanics. And there’s nothing more frustrating than going to your mechanic and not understanding what a “blown head gasket” is or why it needs to be fixed. So, I’m not satisfied until my patients really understand what their diagnosis means, what their options are, and the pros and cons of each option. I hate jargon, and I love simplicity. If I can’t explain something to a ten-year-old, it probably means I don’t understand it well enough.

Hand surgery is a field where my dual loves of engineering and medicine come together. The hand is a beautiful piece of living machinery with hundreds of moving parts—and because we use our hands every day in every single activity, they can really take a beating. My focus in hand surgery is always on function—restoring your ability to use your hands every day without having to think about them. I love helping patients with their hands, because it improves their lives every single day when I do.

Biography