i'm a family physician and certainly not the expert on these, but i see and treat many.

it depends on how angulated the fracture is. if the small piece of bone is off angle less than 30 degrees, then you wouldn't need surgery. most of the time i splint these with the metacarpal joint bent at ~70 degrees and the rest of the finger joints without any bend. also i couple the 4th and sometimes the 3rd fingers along with the 5th in the splint. it's not the easiest splint to put on or to keep in place.

interestingly, there are some orthopods out there who have just treated these with padding only (for protection) and without any fiberglass splinting and obtained just-as-good healing.

hope this helps-