August 26th

From Terry Dietrich, MD
Still no C-arm.  Scott continues to make efforts to get it running.  His optimism hasn’t waned.  The portable unit is working very well now and we have used it in the OR for a couple of cases.  Todd did a second arthroscopy and then he and Scott put a Taylor Spatial frame on the patient and osteotomized his tibia.  Clinic was much smaller today.  Todd and I saw the patients and scheduled several cases for tomorrow including another arthroscopy.  Scott had a long case to start the day.  The child has fibular hemimelia – the small bone in the lower leg didn’t grow properly.  The leg is crooked and short.  He corrected everything and put on o TSF to lengthen the leg.  His surgical talents amaze me.  I did another ankle fusion.  Scott and I finished the day with a 15 y/o boy with spastic hemiplegia.  We corrected his foot and ankle with a lengthening of both the Achilles tendon and posterior tibial tendon and a split anterior tibial tendon transfer.  I finished it at nearly 10 pm.

I had a meeting with a representative of the University of California system.  They have a very strong interest in having extensive participation with HAH.  Professors, clinicians and students from UC San Diego, UC Davis, UCLA, and UC San Francisco want to rotate many surgical and medical specialties through here.  The possibilities here are seemingly limitless.  Dr Archer presented me yesterday with preliminary drawings for the reconfiguration of the OR so that we can have a large enough OR to be able to begin a total joint program.  He and the hospital administrator are very enthusiastic about the idea.  Tomorrow will be our last day.  It has been a tremendous week so far.