Andrew Puckett, MD, one of the nine surgeons of the ASC, goes to Honduras to provide charity care. “The people we work with in the small village of La Esparanza, which means ‘hope’ in Spanish, would never have an opportunity to receive the care we are able to provide for even such a short period of time,” Puckett says.
Honduran women from the Linca Native Indian Tribe wait at a school to see Andrew Puckett, MD, a surgeon at Missoula Bone & Joint Surgery Center in Missoula, Montana, and other physicians who travel to that country every year to provide charity care.
Last year was Puckett’s fifth trip to Honduras. “During this trip the team did 21 surgeries in four days,” he says. “Most of the patients were children. We fixed multiple upper extremity fractures . . . that were truly life-changing surgeries for most of these children.”
An RN, a scrub technician and an anesthesiologist make up the rest of the team that accompanies Puckett. The surgery center works with Missoula Medical Aid.
“Two days of travel to get there, eight days with little or no sleep on cots, noisy roosters, barking dogs, two more days to get home . . . worth every minute,” Puckett says.
The MB&J Surgery Center physicians also volunteer their services for the Osprey, a local semiprofessional baseball team, and do sports physical and locker room visits at the local high school games. A few of the surgeons work with Partnership Health Center, which works with low-income people and sees patients for free.