surgery to repair ulnar and median nerves in his hand.

Why did he need the surgery? What was the cause or reason?
accident/ work related /repetitive?

Another condition that can have some of those similar symptoms is Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. {TOS}
TOS can have what is called double crush or triple crush- the nerve can be impinged at the neck/shoulder area as well as the elbow or the wrist.

We do have a TOS forum if you would like to read more about it.
here is the useful sticky info thread for TOS -
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread84.html