Specialists

Every year, Missoula Medical Aid sends an orthopedic team to La Esperanza and an OB-GYN to work in the San Lorenzo Hospital. We have also sent anesthesiologists, a radiologist, a pulmonologist, Ear Nose and Throat specialists, and are constantly looking for other specialists that might help the patients of these hospitals receive the care they need, at least for the short time we are there. We work in the hospitals, with the hospital staff, and spend almost as much time teaching and learning as we do treating patients. These visits tend to get more and more effective as our relationship with hospital staff deepens.

The Orthopedic Team

Enrique Aguilar Cerrato Hospital in La Esperanza, Honduras is not served by an orthopedist, and so when people cut a tendon or dislocate a joint, or break a bone, they are often left disabled. When the MMA orthopedists and their operating room staff arrive at the hospital the first day, the hallway outside the exam rooms are packed with people waiting to see them. Children with fused fingers, extra fingers, bent elbows, and machete-cut hands and wrists, and twisted feet. Also people with invisible pain in their bones and joints. The hospital has advertised on the radio that we will be there, and so they arrive early and sit and stand and wait. Sometimes all day long. We work with the hospital’s general surgeon and we see as many as we can. Maybe we take a break to do an emergency tendon repair. Then we are back in the office seeing more patients from the hallway again. We work until late and tell those still waiting that we’ll try to see a few more tomorrow between surgeries. For the rest of the week then, we straighten elbows and feet and set broken bones to heal straight. We repair hands and shoulders and knees. We try to help people who work with their bodies be able to work again, or work with less pain.

Dr. Kristen Rauch, OB-GYN

For most of MMA’s history, Dr. Rauch has been working in the San Lorenzo Hospital for a week each January, when the resident OB-GYN is on vacation. She uses his office, and sees patients in the mornings, and does surgeries in the afternoons. She is also on call to deliver babies and do cesareans during the full two-weeks while she is in Honduras. She’s become a well-known figure walking the halls of the San Lorenzo hospital, and her relationship with the staff there has made her time there invaluable.