The Guatemalan woman’s rheumatoid arthritis so incapacitated her that she couldn’t get around her house to handle the most common tasks.
 |
| Kevin Garvin, M.D., left, and Curtis Hartman, M.D., assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery, sit with a grateful patient in Guatemala, where UNMC physicians participated in an orthopaedic relief effort as part of Operation Walk. |
She came to the clinic in Antigua where Kevin Garvin, M.D., and others from UNMC provided relief.
“Her case was among the most challenging that we’ve seen,” said Dr. Garvin,
chairman of orthopaedic surgery. “Even in the states, this surgery would have proven challenging.”
Her condition was such that she couldn’t bend or straighten her knees.
The team decided the woman needed both knees replaced, then during surgery, her knee contractures were released.
“This should allow her to achieve her goal of being pain free, able to walk and go up and down stairs,” said Dr. Garvin, who for the past two years has led teams from UNMC to Guatemala to assist with Operation Walk – a national initiative to provide orthopaedic care in poorer nations.
In a trip this past fall, a UNMC team and other groups from North America performed 73 joint replacement surgeries in one week in Guatemala.
Dr. Garvin was struck by the gratitude, work ethic and toughness of the patients he encountered.
“We took 100 Vicodin — a narcotic pain medication — with us and we didn’t use them all,” he said. “We would have gone through thousands of narcotic pills for the same number of patients in the U.S.”
The pain tolerance of the patients reflected the conditions in Guatemala, where patients often deal with high levels of severe discomfort because care is lacking for joint problems caused by arthritis and other conditions.
It also validated the efforts of Dr. Garvin and UNMC teams that traveled to the Central American country.
There are plans for UNMC to participate in Operation Walk again this year, Dr. Garvin said.
Also, this past fall, UNMC participated in Operation Walk U.S.A., which allowed about 85 uninsured patients from around the U.S. to receive free joint replacement surgeries. One of those surgeries was performed by UNMC surgeons at The Nebraska Medical Center.
Chad Vokoun, M.D., assistant professor of internal medicine, was among those who participated in Operation Walk in Guatemala. To see patients get up and walk and move, sometimes after many years of immobility, provided a lot of satisfaction, he said.
“It’s been amazing to see them get up and walk just two hours after their anesthesia wore off,” Dr. Vokoun said. “I’ll always remember how much fun we had getting them up and active again.”