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By Rebecca Ruiz-McGill, University Communications
January 7, 2008

In the seven days he is spending in Honduras, University of Arizona surgeon Joseph E. Sheppard will perform more than 60 free hand, elbow and shoulder operations at Hospital Escuela, the teaching hospital in Tegucigalpa.

Sheppard, associate professor of clinical orthopaedic surgery at the UA College of Medicine and hand and microvascular surgeon in the department of orthopaedic surgery, performs the surgeries as a volunteer with Hand Surgeries Overseas, a program of Health Volunteers Overseas.

Health Volunteers Overseas is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the availability and quality of health care in developing countries through the training and education of local health care providers.

“Hand injuries are extremely common and are the most seen trauma in the emergency room. We underestimate the role of the hand as a tool, but hands allow us to live the life we appreciate,” Sheppard said.

Of the millions of work-related injuries treated in U.S. emergency rooms, hands and fingers are the most commonly treated body part, according to a report published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Honduras, many of the injuries Sheppard will see are the result of mishaps with machetes, complications from infections and trauma from car accidents.

Sheppard, who left for Honduras on Jan. 5, spent most of last year preparing for the trip by collecting donated supplies and equipment. Supplies that are readily found in the United States can be rare if not foreign to hospitals and staff in Central America. With the aid and support of the overall U.S. orthopaedic community, as well as the support of industry manufacturers, Sheppard secured the surgery supplies needed.

“Supplies we take for granted, that we discard in everyday practice, supplies we normally throw away in the U.S., are used every day over and over again in Honduras,” Sheppard said. “We pack with anticipation of the cases we might operate on, such as one surgery we anticipate in which we will reposition a fractured shoulder that healed in the wrong position. The bone in the shoulder needs to be reconstructed with rods not found in Honduras,” he said.

Sheppard is accompanied on the trip by University Medical Center operating room surgical technicians Victor Cordero and Mary Scunziano and Kimberly Lindberg, a fifth-year resident at the UA College of Medicine as well as Dan Switlick, M.D. a former UA hand surgery resident now practicing medicine in California. Combined they brought about 200 pounds of supplies.

While he is there, Sheppard also will lecture to students enrolled at the school. His annual visits have earned him recognition as an honorary faculty member of the Honduran Plastic Surgery Training Program at Hospital Escuela.

Though this trip is the final of a four-year commitment he made to train surgeons in Honduras – the program will continue. This spring, a resident from Hospital Escuela will come to the UA College of Medicine as a visiting clinical fellow. The fellow will complete the necessary training to continue the cycle of bringing hand surgery know-how to Honduras.

Sheppard hopes to move on to other areas of Central America, helping patients while sharing his surgical expertise.