Building a Better Path to Orthopedic Care
One of the most impactful ways Faith In Practice provides life-changing care is through our Orthopedic program. There is an incredible need for quality orthopedic care across Guatemala. Our patients are recruited through a medical clinic team or through one of our partner hospitals and are scheduled for surgery with one of our 11 orthopedic surgery teams that serve throughout the year. These teams perform knee, hip, foot & ankle, trauma, shoulder, hand, and sports medicine surgeries. Many of these cases utilize implants provided by our partner, Zimmer Biomet, who has been instrumental to the success of Faith In Practice’s orthopedic surgical care. After receiving surgery and post-operative physical therapy, our patients may return for follow up care or to be fitted with a prosthetic.
Faith In Practice’s medical clinic teams are the essential piece at the beginning of this journey where patients who are most in need of orthopedic care are identified in the rural villages of Guatemala. Previously, most orthopedic patients were screened and referred for surgery through limited clinics at the Obras Sociales del Santo Hermano Pedro Hospital by Dr. Ishimaru. As the number of orthopedic surgery teams and need for surgical care increased, the need for orthopedic clinics to triage and evaluate patients also increased.
In the fall of 2024, Dr. Mark Woolf, a retired orthopedic surgeon who led surgical mission teams with Faith in Practice for 15 years and current Board Member and Spiritual Care Leader, piloted our first orthopedic clinic on a medical clinic team. The number of orthopedic clinics increased to 6 teams in 2025 and 9 teams in 2026. In fiscal year 2026 our medical clinic teams saw 1,304 patients across all orthopedic clinics and 557 were referred to a surgical team.
Many longtime volunteer orthopedic surgeons have stepped in to serve on these medical clinic teams in order to develop and improve orthopedic continuity of care within Faith In Practice. One of these surgeons is Dr. Mike Berend. Last year, Dr. Berend played a key role in obtaining a portable x-ray machine from Turner Imaging for Faith In Practice, which has enabled us to expand patients’ access to care even more.
Proper imaging is an essential part of the standard of care for confirming a diagnosis and planning the surgical approach. Orthopedic surgeons cannot safely or responsibly make surgical treatment decisions without current and accurate imaging. Previously, orthopedic patients were required to make several trips across Guatemala to Antigua for preoperative screening. In many cases, patients forgot to bring their images or their images were outdated. This created a challenge for the physician to properly evaluate the patient, and it meant a patient might later travel to the hospital only to find out they were not a proper candidate for surgery.
During Dr. Berend’s surgical trip in 2024 with the Hope In Motion team, the x-ray machine at the Obras Hospital was out of service for repairs, so Obras arranged for a mobile x-ray technician to bring a portable unit to the hospital. Seeing that mobile machine in action, Dr. Berend recognized that the same technology could be brought directly to Faith In Practice village clinics.
Dr. Berend researched options that would work well in the environments Faith In Practice teams serve in and identified Turner Imaging. Turner Imaging recently developed The Enduro, a portable x-ray machine for EMS and emergency military situations. Dr. Berend worked with the company’s representative to ensure that its image quality would meet the standard our orthopedic providers require for pelvis and lower-extremity imaging, meet the logistical needs of the medical clinic, and ensure it would connect with Insight, our electronic data platform.
The Enduro enables patients to get necessary imaging completed in the clinic that same day, without having to make additional trips to Antigua, and allows the physician to make an appropriate diagnosis and referral. The images taken by the machine are uploaded directly into Insight. The ability to pass along patient records and these images from the medical clinic to the surgical teams has greatly streamlined the process for effective medical care for our patients. The Enduro was first used on a team in October 2025 and has been used in the orthopedic clinics throughout 2026.
We are so grateful for the partnership of Turner Imaging and for Dr. Berend’s generosity that brought the portable x-ray to our clinics. Alongside the dedicated physicians, nurses, interpreters, and other volunteers who make up the continuity of orthopedic care that Faith In Practice provides in Guatemala, they have truly made a life-changing impact on our patients.
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There are volunteer opportunities for x-ray technicians and orthopedic specialists on our mission teams. View our list of current volunteer opportunities or contact us at teams@faithinpractice.org.
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