DREAMS OF A SIGN SURGEON

I have always believed that being a doctor and a surgeon is a call, a vocation.

I think that a doctor is called to promote, defend and improve the life of his patients.

As a Sign surgeon I do that every day trying to restore the life of people who have seen everything turned upside down, due to an accident and a fracture. I am well aware that I repair bones but I mend lives in the same time.

It is my joy and my fulfillment when I see a person coming to theater in great pain and unable to move, and then I meet him the following day walking in the ward with crutches and above all with very little pain. It is rewarding to follow up patients and to realize that slowly they go back to normal life, they use the limbs like before the accident and that nobody would even realize that they had a fracture.

Orthopedic surgery is very expensive, and in Developing Countries that has created a gap between the rich, who can afford buying implants, and the poor, who will probably heal with disabilities because unable to afford surgery.

In the past, I have seen so many cripple people, surviving as beggars in front of churches, simply because their fracture was never treated.

Through Sign, that doesn't happen anymore, at least within the catchment area of our hospital.

Sign has actually allowed me to fulfill another aspect of my call: in fact I believe a doctor must not be discriminative and, above all, he must never refuse treatment because of finances. Doctors are called to treat everybody, but with special attention and preferential choice for the poor.

Sign implants are free and I can therefore operate everybody, without asking them to pay anything for the implant. Thanks to Sign we are now slowly creating equality between the rich and poor: no more patients on traction for months because they cannot buy an implant; no more deformities and disabilities because operation was never done. Only God knows how many poor people are now walking freely because of the free implants from Sign!

The Sign Family is also for me a place of professional growth.

A good doctor and surgeon never stops learning, studying and updating because he is aware of the fact that it is much more what he doesn't know, compared to what he is confident about. The Sign family is for me a big occasion of continuous formation, through the webinars, the conferences in the USA, and even the daily feedbacks on our surgeries that we receive from Dr Zirkle and other experts. Actually I keep growing professionally every day and my skills are improving with the help of so many other surgeons.

In the Sign Family we share the same vision and we all believe that doctors are servants of humanity. On a personal note, I think that my life must be completely donated, 24 hours a day and that self sacrifice and total dedication are an integral part of my ideal of doctor and surgeon.

Thanks a lot, Sign Family for being a pillar in my continuous effort of unconditional love and service to the poor and the sick.

Dr Giuseppe Gaido

PS: THIS SMALL ARTICLE APPEARED ON THE SIGNFRACURE NEWSLETTER OF APRIL 30^TH, INTERNATIONAL DOCTORS' DAY