Spaces around hyphens [closed]

Solution 1:

If this is the title of, say, a section of instructions, and it means After Shoulder Surgery, you don't need any hyphen at all; you can use post as a preposition, just like after:

Post Shoulder Surgery

Here is the OED's definition:

post, prep.

Subsequent to, later than; following, since.
_{1965 Listener 16 Sept. 432/3: Der Ferne Klang is post-Wagnerian, and post just about everything else that was happening at the turn of the century.
1979 Daily Tel. 19 July 21/4: Post the Geneva meeting of Opec the OECD reckons that its 24 member countries..can expect average economic growth of only two p.c. over the next 12 months.}

(For that matter, why not use after?)

If this goes on to modify something else, you can use a "super hyphen" (a.k.a. an en dash):

Post–Shoulder Surgery Checkup

Here's what The Chicago Manual of Style has to say about the super hyphen:

Whereas a hyphen joins exactly two words, the en dash is intended to signal a link across more than two. Because this editorial nicety will almost certainly go unnoticed by the majority of readers, it should be used sparingly, when a more elegant solution is unavailable. . . .

the post–World War II years
Chuck Berry–style lyrics
country music–influenced lyrics (or lyrics influenced by country music)

Here are some more examples:

En dashes connect the concepts in the following phrases: “Academy Award–winning actor,” pre–Industrial Revolution technology,” “ex–vice president,” and “non–United Nations action.”
_{Source: En Dashes Clarify Compound Phrasal Adjectives}