August 24th

From Terry Dietrich, MD
Aug 24     The ortho clinic was even bigger today.  I saw a man with a clear cut torn lateral meniscus.  He will be the first Haitian arthroscopy case.  I put him on the schedule for tomorrow.  We have about 8 other cases on the list as well for tomorrow.  All of our cases went well today even though we don’t have a C-arm.  Todd helped Scott with a Taylor Spatial frame.  I did a knee fusion on a pt with post traumatic arthrosis.  Todd grafted a nonunion of a tibia with post ICBG.  I saw the mystery patient in clinic.  He has a healed incision on his buttock that looks like he had a hemiarthroplasty.  The staples were still in.  He said his surgery was done here at HAH 5 weeks ago.  His xray shows that he has an intertroch hip fracture with no evidence that the fracture was ever fixed.  His medical record is missing.  We may never find out what transpired.  The blood finally arrived for our trauma patient at 7:30 tonight.  We got 2 units so will get them in tonight then do his surgery early tomorrow.  I sure hope he makes it.  There is a nearby house that may be where we will be staying for the year.  We’re going to look at it tomorrow.  I spoke with Dr Archer today after he made rounds with us.  He was pleasant and very agreeable.