DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Eleven-year-old Jude Dosmanos was born in the Philippines with clubfeet. Physical therapist Michele Chee, above, helps him with his leg lifts.
Shriners nurtures
boy with clubfeetThe Philippine native has
surgery for a deformity that
hinders more than his mobility
Eleven-year-old Jude Dosmanos smiles through the pain of reconstructive surgery at the thought that he'll be able to wear shoes for the first time when he leaves Shriners Hospital for Children.
The child, from Catarman, Camiguin province, the Philippines, began undergoing surgery last week for clubfeet.
He's had the deformity since birth, and it's severe because the bones in his feet are misshapen as well as out of place, said Shriners orthopedic surgeon Ellen Raney.
As a result, she said, the bones must be cut to reshape them. At least four surgical procedures, and more likely eight, will be necessary to correct the boy's feet, she said. She expects the treatment to take about eight months.
Without the surgery, the child probably would go through life "essentially walking on the tops of his feet," she said. "He probably could walk fairly well doing that." However, children with clubfeet in some villages are considered "cripples" and live under a social stigma, she said.
Raney is using a technique developed in Russia, the Ilizarov method, to reshape the bones in Jude's feet, starting with his right foot.
"It's a very complex device," she said, explaining it isn't commonly used outside Shriners hospitals because the costs are so high. It's an external fixator, described in literature as "much like a bone scaffold," that is attached to the limb and gradually adjusted to correct the deformity.
When the bones are cut and healing, "they are soft like taffy and stretchable," Raney said. The foot is slowly realigned through the bones by turning rods on the device four times a day for a total of one millimeter (.04 of an inch).
She said Jude will walk normally in shoes when released from Shriners but will need to wear braces over them for six months to prevent the deformity from recurring.
Jude dropped out of school last year in the third grade because classmates were teasing and calling him "clubfoot boy," said his sister, Maria Franzuela, 30.
She accompanied him here in March on a trip encouraged about two years ago by Dr. Gunther Hintz, president and director of Medicorps.
Joe Rosales, an Aloha Shriner who is coordinating arrangements for the boy and his sister in Hawaii, said he and Hintz were in Catarman in October 2000 with the Aloha Medical Mission.
He said Hintz went back the next year, talked to the parents about free surgery for Jude at Shriners Hospital and offered to facilitate the paperwork.
The trip was delayed for financial reasons, said Maria, who resigned her job in a law firm and borrowed about $1,200 for the air fare with promises to repay it when she can.
Her father is a retired government employee, and her mother works for a government environment and natural resources agency, she said. Neither one is well, and she was chosen as the oldest of 10 siblings to bring her brother here.
She said Jude's daily routine at home was to sit five or 10 minutes after waking up because it was too painful for him to stand immediately.
He wore slippers and suffered from taunting in school, she said. "He already feels shy and insecure about the physical thing. Sometimes he decided not to go to school anymore. Everyone's making fun of his feet."
Rosales said the Filipino-American community in Waipahu and the Samar-Leyte Association of Hawaii have provided support and financial help for Jude and his sister. Members donated about $600 sent to the Philippine National Bank for the child's education, he said.
Jude received five immunizations recommended for Hawaii children that are too expensive or not available in the Philippines, Maria said. Dr. David Brown, with the Temple Valley Dental Group, also has done free dental work for the boy at Rosales' request.
His teeth were "quite extensively decayed for his age," Brown said. "We rarely see something like that these days in Hawaii. His first molars were not salvageable. We're trying to do what we can," including root canal treatments and restorations, he said. He said he hopes to finish the work before Jude returns home.
Rosales moved the siblings to different host families after arrival until last week when Jude was admitted to Shriners. Maria is living in a hospital dormitory and has offered to work as a volunteer there "to show my gratitude."
Rosales is looking for more financial assistance for the two and families close to the hospital to house them when the boy is released for outpatient care. He can be reached at 386-3385.
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Medicorps plan links
isles to doctors abroad
Physicians in poor, underdeveloped countries would have Internet access to specialized knowledge and technology from the Honolulu County Medical Society under a Medicorps proposal.
Dr. Gunther Hintz, president and director of Medicorps, who has been involved in international medical relief for 15 years, developed a plan for the Medicorps Internet Relief Network.
He said the primary purposes are to transfer technology and train foreign physicians.
Medicorps conducts medical missions in Southeast Asia, Africa, the South Pacific and South America to train physicians and other health care providers in specialized care.
Dr. Inam Rahman, Honolulu County Medical Society president, said its 900 members are being surveyed about working with Medicorps to provide advice and consultation to foreign physicians on an Internet Relief Network.
He said the goal is to help them with "advanced medicine and technology so they could treat their patients more effectively." (A specialist in internal medicine, Rahman has a weekly medical show from 10 to 11 a.m. on AM radio, 1080, and he discusses medical issues at 8 p.m. on Thursdays on TV channel 52.)
Medicorps will select hospitals, health care centers or colleges to receive Internet-based medical specialty consultations and establish procedures for the system's operation.
A Medicorps Web site will be set up as a link to corresponding Web pages of medical associations and specialty and subspecialty societies.
"The emphasis is on the establishment of personal relationships and mutual understanding of each other's capabilities," Hintz said in his proposal.
