Without a doubt, we couldn't do it without sign. I don't know what we would do. I mean,
I think of thousands of patients that have been helped because of the sign nail. It's
really a powerful thing.
We started from scratch. We had nothing. And it was like a nightmare to us because we had
nothing to treat all these long-born fractures. With the coming of sign, we are able to treat
very, very difficult fractures. And to me, this is really amazing.
When sign came, it was a total revolution. A tibia, fracture tibia, takes us 45 minutes.
A fracture humerus takes us 40 minutes. Sign, according to me, is a genius idea because
with the same nail, we operate all the parts of the body, which is great.
I came from watching patients in the government hospital on traction and skin traction for
months and months in the hospital to see my patient walk out of the hospital in a week's
time, less than a week, and not in any deformity. So it has been amazing.
When you fix a bone that is broken with the sign nail, the patient goes back to normal.
If you see that patient after three to six months, you cannot tell when he's working
and he had a fracture before. So that's the magic of sign nail.
Because there is such an enormous need for orthopedic treatment in the developing world,
most fractures are managed by non-orthopedic specialists. Many people have no access to
any medical care. Dr. Zirkel has made an enormous contribution to the developing world with
the introduction of an intramedular nail that can be put in without x-ray. So he's taken
a procedure that I would consider to be only safely done in a level one trauma center and
he has allowed that procedure to be done in a rural clinic and that is an amazing accomplishment.
He envisioned these implants that would function as well as what we were using here in the
United States but would be simpler and made at much lower cost.
He understood right from the very beginning that once they have these tools, they can
learn these new surgeries and it's a platform to learn more than just that surgery and to
become more sophisticated in treating orthopedic injuries.
I was blessed to do the 200,000 patient for sign. I'm just overwhelmed because it's not
me. It's everybody contributing and doing what they can. Whatever sign does for people,
physically cannot be compared to what it does to the whole person whether it be emotionally
psychologically. I've only treated the physical disability but in general the surgery actually
healed him entirely and now I see that life would be bright for him.
We recognize that we have to continue to improve. I think it's nice when you come to a milestone
not to pat yourself on the back but to reflect on where we've been and where we're going
to go. It can be 200,000 and each one of those 200,000 is a patient. Many times with a family
depending on them sort of affects many people. We're just grateful that there are people
who are touched by the need of the family in developing countries to have the breadwinner
get up and get back to work right away. People understand that. We're sending out 25,000
nails a year now so it's going to take four years or less to get to the next 100,000.
That's amazing and the fact that we've reached 200,000 patients it's because we have donors
that believe in us and it's more than the money. It's that people are investing in us
and do believe that we can do it in those early days. We were naive enough to think
that we could build an implant company, a humanitarian implant company that could serve
the world and donors believed us too and so it made it possible.
We all have that spark of humanity that's equal. We have this connection because of
a common goal. We have this connection because we've met each other as human beings and we
don't look at other aspects of who a person is. All we know is they're a good orthopedic
surgeon helping the poor and that defines them. I see people whose countries do not
get along together, talking together and working together. It goes above all those politics.
I have a higher mission. I would like to encourage people that they would love others, that they
would love those who are in need because somebody once said and I've always been reminded by
my parents when I was young, he said you can give without loving but you can never love
without giving. So for us surgeons, we want to first love our patients so we will give
them our time and it's not a surprise because it becomes contagious. When people see how
lives are being transformed, one surgery, one leg at a time, then a lot of us surgeons
would see, I want to be part of that too. I want to also change lives and sign gives
us that opportunity and we're really humbled to be able to share what we have learned,
to be able to share the little skills that we have so that we can change a life, we can
change a family and maybe change a community.
