Monday, April 13, 2026
Team 900 Cahill / Dawson / Kim
Taking a first-world orthopedic surgery practice on the road to a developing country is a big production. Just getting 51 Americans to coordinate their schedules for a week is a testimony to the importance of this mission to each volunteer who is not only donating a week’s vacation time but also paying for airfare, room and board to be able to participate. And Team 900 is not the only such team: Faith In Practice organizes surgical missions 19 weeks out of the year. In addition, there are medical teams that travel to remote locations and refer patients who are candidates for surgery to the hospital side of the mission. The stakes are high for patients who have managed to get a spot on the schedule this week.
Over the next four days, we plan to do 78 surgeries, so today we get off to a running start. Dr. Kate Cahill does 4 hip replacements today in room #2. In room #3, Dr. Mike Johnson and Dr. Brock Howell do 4 foot and ankle cases. In addition, Dr. Howell also has 4 knee replacements in room #4. And in room #5 Dr. Matt Nies does 4 more knees. (Yes, it does rhyme). In room #1 are 4 of the trauma cases I saw in Dr. Jack Dawson’s intake clinic yesterday.
The first trauma case is Wilmer, a 41 year-old man who was in a motorcycle accident a year ago. He had surgery at the time, but there is still a gap between the two pieces of his broken femur. Today, part of his procedure involves shaving bone from his pelvis with an instrument that looks like a mechanized cheese grater. That bone material will go into the defect in order to prevent his leg from shortening.
Yakelen is an athletic 24 year-old woman with a beautiful smile. Fr. Chris and I visit with her and with some of the other patients in the pre-op room as they wait to go into their surgeries. Yakelen has a benign tumor that has been causing pain, so that will come out today.
Oswaldo is a 37 year-old man with a chronic infection that has caused bone loss in his two broken lower-leg bones. He and his wife held hands, tears in their eyes, when they learned yesterday that amputation might be his best option. However, Dr. Dawson offered them a second option, the one they chose: he will attempt to save the leg by cutting out the infected bone and compressing what’s left, using an external frame. Best case scenario, the bones will heal, leaving that leg 2 cm shorter than the other one. Worst case, the bones still fail to heal, and the leg has to be amputated anyway.
Libny is the 22 year-old with a cancerous tumor, but we’re not sure yet what sort of cancer. Dr. Cory Couch, the orth-onc doc (orthopedic oncologist) will do Libny’s biopsy in room #1. Depending on how malignant the tumor is, it might be possible to save her leg, or she might have to have it amputated.
Meanwhile, the Mobility Clinic gets started on their first set of 30 patients today. They plan to see 150 over the course of the week and fit them with wheelchairs, walkers and crutches as needed. Dr. Michael Bubis evaluates a woman who has suffered from a wound on her right foot for two years. Her uncontrolled diabetes caused neuropathy that prevented her from reacting to an ulcer that has resulted in one toe falling off. As she begins to unwrap the bandage, Dr. Bubis warns me that I might not want to see what’s under there. The end of her foot is purple, like one big bruise, with something fibrous where the base of the middle toe would normally be. “Actually,” he remarks, “it’s not too necrotic.” He does however ask her, “Where did the third toe go?” in an attempt to figure out when it auto-amputated. Afterwards, she rebandages her foot and sticks it partially into a sandal, in order to try out the walker she is getting today. She also gets a referral for surgical evaluation, because she’s going to need an amputation.
Dr. Adam Schindler evaluates a mother and daughter who both need help. The mother needs a wheelchair after a stroke, and the daughter starts to cry when she finds out that the only solution for her knee pain is a surgery to replace the joint. Dr. Schindler assures her that it’s nothing to be scared of, and he puts her name on the list to be seen on the surgical intake side. By the time they’re leaving, the mother has both a wheelchair and a walker to take home, and the daughter is smiling again as she thanks Erin Hutchins and the other mobility clinic volunteers.
