Jay S Johnson, MD
For Jay S. Johnson, MD, an orthopedic surgeon in Edina, the call to serve meant traveling to Antigua, Guatemala, once with his wife and a second time with his entire family through the non-profit organization called Common Hope.

Dr. Johnson’s wife, Sue Dittmanson, MD, is an OBGYN physician at United Hospital. During their week-long mission at Hermano Pedro Hospital in Antigua, each operated on approximately 20 people. While in Guatemala, his daughters participated in non-medical social work visiting homes and educating the community.

 “The biggest challenge of the mission is that it is physically very demanding. You are operating all day long. And also you have to manage your time and figure out what you can do well with the equipment,” Johnson said.

In the United States, Dr. Johnson would have his choice between 20 and 30 bone rods when caring for a non-union fracture. In Guatemala, he had only three. When asked what he took away from his trip, Dr. Johnson replied. “We have it really good here.”

One of his highlights for Johnson included performing an ACL reconstruction on one of the Guatemalan World Cup Soccer players.

William Lundberg, MD
Orthopedic Surgeon, William Lundberg’s overseas trip wasn’t a typical medical mission, it was a military one. 

Dr. Lundberg, a member of the Army Reserve, has been deployed three times, twice to Germany and once to Iraq. By day in Iraq, Dr. Lundberg was caring for wounded soldiers in a “pop-up hospital” and by night he was sleeping in a tiny barracks with no windows and walls made of cinderblock with just single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. 

The “pop-up hospitals” had pretty much everything Dr. Lundberg needed to care for wounded soldiers. One of the major differences Lundberg cited while caring for soldiers is that follow-up care was not an option. It was an order, therefore the outcomes were highly successful. “The patients are young and active. They follow orders and tend to get better a lot faster than the average patient in the United States,” Lundberg said. 

When asked what he learned from his time in Iraq, Lundberg said, “It makes you more thankful for the soldiers that protect us. The stuff they do for us is dangerous. How good our troops work and how hard they work and the dangers they are exposed to all the time. They are all young kids; 20-something-year-olds. We should all be proud and thank them.”

Anthony Brown, MD
Through the non-profit group, Surgical Implant Generation Network (SIGN), Dr. Anthony Brown, an orthopedic surgeon in Robbinsdale, Minn., traveled to Vietnam and Indonesia in 2004 and 2005 to assist orthopedic surgeons in caring for patients with traumatic injuries.

While in Vietnam and Indonesia, Dr. Brown said that he was learning almost as much as he was teaching. He described the hospital environments at each location as very collaborative. At first glance that might seem difficult with an obvious language barrier, however according to Dr. Brown, “The good thing about orthopedics is that a picture is worth a thousand words and an x-ray always tells the story.”

According to Brown, the cases he had during each of his two-week long trips were more extreme than those that he typically sees in the United States. Instead of taking care of a fracture that occurred a day ago, he was taking care of ones that happened two months ago.

Additionally, Dr, Brown said he had to learn to do more with less. “In surgery they have much less resources than we have here, therefore you have to be more creative and more technically skilled,” Brown said. “I just think it is fun and interesting.”

Patrick Kraft, MD
Dr. Patrick Kraft, an orthopedic surgeon also practicing in Robbinsdale, Minn., has traveled to Guatemala eleven times. The trips, part of the ministries at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn., helped a church in the Lake Atitlan area reach out to the community through providing general health and wellness and other services.

During the first few years of mission work, health education was focused on teaching the Guatemalans how small lifestyle changes could drastically improve their quality of life. Teaching people to cook outside and drink filtered water, vastly decreased the high incidence rate of pulmonary and digestive conditions. 

In later years of his mission work, Dr. Kraft spent his time traveling to more remote villages. “People would hear that we were coming to their village and they would wait in line all day to be seen.” Kraft said.

In treating Guatemalans, Dr. Kraft had to adapt to the local culture. For example, the Guatemalan people believe that in treating fractures the Shaman, an intermediary between the human and spirit worlds that can treat illness, must come in the middle of the night to strike the broken bone before it can heal.

“Patients had a feeling that we had an ability to cure them, but the spirits were just as important in the healing process.” And so over an 11-year period, many Guatemalans were treated by Dr. Kraft and the local Shaman.

UPDATE: Since this article was written, Dr. Brown and Dr. Anderson have traveled to Haiti to care for those injured during the earthquake that ravaged the country on January 12, 2010. Look for their stories and others in an upcoming eNewsletter. Sign-up at www.tcomn.com.

Support the Work
Twin Cities Orthopedics would like to encourage anyone interested in supporting physician mission work to contact the Twin Cities Orthopedics Foundation at www.tcofoundation.org or by phone at (952) 927-2989.