A year had passed since a young man came to the clinic with severe joint disease in his hips that left him unable to stand up straight, his torso pitched forward about 45 degrees as he steadied himself on a crutch.
But thanks in part to a group of volunteer clinicians from the Brigham, he was now running laps up and down a hallway at a hospital in the Dominican Republic, where he had received bilateral hip-joint replacement surgery through Operation Walk Boston—an orthopedic medical mission founded by Thomas S. Thornhill, MD, former chair of the BWH Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.
The program partners with Hospital General de la Plaza de la Salud in Santo Domingo to perform hip- and knee-joint replacements for patients who can’t afford the procedures. It completed its ninth mission in April. Continue reading “Operation Walk Boston Volunteers Go the Extra Mile”