August 25th

From Terry Dietrich, MD
We had another very good day.  The clinic was huge with more than 40 clubfoot patients.  There were an additional 35 regular ortho patients.  Joseph Fritzner returned to the clinic.  I operated on him at least a half dozen times in April.  He had fractures of both arms, both femurs and left tibia into the knee.  He had an infection in the tibia fracture as well as a compartment syndrome.  I almost amputated his leg on 2 occasions.  His leg is doing well as are the other extremities.  He uses a brace on his left ankle and still walks with a cane.  He and his wife were happy to see us as we were to see him.    Scott has a good system set up for the clubfeet so it went smoothly.  The whole area of the hospital around the ortho clinic was massively packed all day.  Both rounds and surgery went very well.  All of our patients seem to be recovering from surgery nicely.  It was a great day in the OR.  Dr Smith did the first arthroscopy case ever in this hospital and maybe the first ever in the country.  It went very well.  The patient had a torn lateral meniscus as I had thought when I saw him in the clinic.  The new equipment worked very well.  It is exciting to be involved in a project like this.  I am very thankful to Ed Mueller and Linvatec for making such a generous contribution.  We have seen more than a half dozen patients in the clinic that need joint replacement.  The small ORs are inadequate.  The possibility of removing the wall between OR 3 and the storage room and then combining them into a large OR that would be suitable for Total joint surgery was discussed with Dr Archer and the hospital administrator.  They are very enthusiastic about the possibility.  Combining that with finishing the new wing would undoubtedly attract many paying patients.  All of our cases went well today including the ankle fusion that I did.  We were able to finally wash out the open femur fracture and then put in an interlocking SIGN nail as well as fix the tibia with another locked SIGN nail.  Fortunately he is thin and we were able to use a tourniquet and blood loss was negligible.  Nathan took Jeannie and me to the house across the street where we will probably be living when we come back.  We will be sharing it with about a half dozen other volunteers.  It is a large house that appears to have been unoccupied for a long time.  It has a very large yard surrounded by a high block wall.  I think it will work very well for us.  If we were going to be living here for several years, we would find our own house to live in.