Drs. Tim Sproule and Sarah Wong

A medical mission to Bolivia in December by two of The Scarborough Hospital’s Plastic Surgeons is being hailed as an auspicious start in training that country’s surgeons to perform delicate microsurgery. Drs. Tim Sproule and Sarah Wong arrived in La Paz on Dec. 13 to conduct microsurgery courses with eight local surgeons.

The trip was sponsored by the international organization Interplast and the Canadian Reconstructive Surgery Foundation, a charity founded by Dr. Sproule.

“We spent five days teaching microsurgery to surgeons from all over the country,” Dr. Wong says. “It turns out we may be part of the first hand replant program in Bolivia, which will help revolutionize medicine. It’s very exciting.”

Dr. Sproule had been in La Paz earlier last year and discovered the country of 10 million people has virtually no capacity for standard microvascular hand or reconstructive surgery.

“This means literally thousands of severe injuries are inadequately looked after, ranging from minor nerve injuries to severe amputations,” explains Dr. Sproule. “Hand replant, the need for which probably happens once or twice a day in Bolivia, requires relatively basic microsurgical techniques which can be done in almost any hospital, but isn’t being done anywhere in Bolivia. They have the surgeons and they have the hospitals; they just don’t have the training and experience.”

That’s where Drs. Sproule and Wong come in. They arranged a standard course of lectures along with an emphasis on rat dissections (the standard model for microsurgery courses in developed countries).

Dr. Wong’s unique background as the coordinator for an animal microsurgery lab in Calgary and Hamilton came in handy.

“Dr. Wong not only has a lot of experience with microsurgery, but she has significant recent experience in how to prepare rats for anaesthesia and surgery,” Dr. Sproule explains. “The last time I worked on rats was 25 years ago!”

Dr. Sproule donated four small sets of microsurgical instruments.

“You don’t need a U-Haul full of equipment to pull off a complicated, sophisticated course,” Dr. Sproule adds. “We just used local resources.”

As for future medical missions, Dr. Wong says, “I am excited to do more.”

“I found it rewarding, and I totally recommend it to all the doctors. It makes you feel like you’re part of something bigger.”

Both surgeons hope to return later this fall to conduct further training and work on a few clinical cases.