St. Anthony's 2009 Triathlon

As the first major race on the U.S. calendar, St. Anthony's Triathlon has kicked off the triathlon season in North America for the past 26 years. On race day the athletes swim through the brisk waters of Tampa Bay, bike along glimmering waterways and quiet harbors and run through picturesque neighborhoods and past cheering spectators. This race contains the world's top professional triathletes as they compete for $60,000.

Gainesville Prosthetic's Sean Mello competed in his first Triathlon this year by finishing the St. Anthony's Triathlon in 2 hours and 28 minutes! Due to the weather, the swim portion was cancelled, but Sean was able to complete the 40K bike in 1 hour 15 minutes and the 10 K run in 1 hour 4 minutes. He finished 2nd overall in his group. We are proud of Sean and his continued efforts of supporting the Challenged Athletes Foundation to provide opportunities and support to people with physical disabilities so they can pursue active lifestyles through physical fitness and competitive athletics.

Congratulation to DeAnna on becoming a certified and licensed Prosthetist

DeAnna M. Clough, MSPO, CPO, LPO has become a certified and licensed prosthetist after passing the American Board for Certification in Orthotics, Prosthetics & Pedorthics (ABC) prosthetic exams and obtaining Florida licensure. ABC practitioner certification is awarded as an attestation of competency for the public, those who require orthotic/prosthetic services, and those in other health professions. The awarding of ABC practitioner certification provides the certified practitioner with an appropriate and meaningful recognition of professional competence. The examinations measure the candidate's knowledge of orthotics and prosthetics, their analytical and problem solving skills as well as clinical, patient management and communication skills. ABC practitioner certification is the profession's highest standards for professionals providing patient care and technical services. At Gainesville Prosthetics, we pride ourselves in being an ABC accredited facility where all of our practitioners are ABC certified prosthetist-orthotists.

Welcome Stephen B. Fletcher, CPO, LPO

Stephen B. Fletcher, CPO has recently joined Gainesville Prosthetics as a clinical prosthetist/orthotist. He has extensive experience in various practice settings, including serving as director of Shands Hospital O&P department as well as being employed as a staff prosthetist/orthotist for a mid-sized independent organization. He also has experience as Virginia Prosthetics' Residency Program Director.

Mr. Fletcher also served as chair of the initial Florida O&P licensure board. He joined the American Board for Certification in Orthotics, Prosthetics & Pedorthics (ABC) in 1993 as a volunteer orthotic examiner and eventually served on the exam committee and did a rotation as an exam auditor and site coordinator. He was selected to join the board of directors in 2002 and went on to serve as president of ABC in 2007.

CAF Triathlon

Established in 1997, the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) is a unique organization that recognizes the athletic greatness inherent in all people with physical challenges and supports their athletic endeavors by providing grants for training, competition and equipment needs. It is the mission of the Challenged Athletes Foundation (http://www.challengedathletes.org/) to provide opportunities and support to people with physical disabilities so they can pursue active lifestyles through physical fitness and competitive athletics. The Challenged Athletes Foundation involvement in sports at any level increases self-esteem, encourages independence and enhances quality of life. This year, the CAF held it's 15th annual San Diego Triathlon Challenge, which is a half-Ironman distance event featuring world-class challenged athletes, professional triathletes, celebrities and other able-bodied participants on one of the most breathtaking courses in the country. Over the past thirteen years, this event has helped raise over $16 million to support thousands of challenged athletes.

Gainesville Prosthetic's very own, Sean Mello competed in the event this year. Sean is a 42 year-old veteran who in May 2003 was injured at a military training event on the water that lead to his right transtibial amputation. Prior to his accident, he was an active person who enjoyed running, biking and diving amongst other activities. Following his accident, Sean began running again with the aid of a prosthesis designed for running. In 2007, the idea of biking again began to surface in Sean with it culminating after a September 2008 meeting with the Florida chapter of CAF. Here, Sean was told about the San Diego Triathlon Challenge to be held on Sunday, October 26, 2008. Shortly after his meeting, Sean was introduced to a member of the Operation Rebound group. Operation Rebound provides unparalleled sports opportunities and support to our troops and veterans of any branch of service and first responders who have suffered permanent physical injuries in the line of duty. With only 5 weeks to go before the triathlon and a bike from Operation Rebound, Sean formed a team for the relay triathlon, in which he would be competing in the bicycling portion of the race. After finishing the 56.2 mile bike race in 3 hours and 34 minutes, Sean affirmed he was hooked on bicycling! Gainesville Prosthetics is very proud of Sean and his many accomplishments and will be supporting him as he trains for the St. Anthony's full marathon in St. Petersburg, Florida on April 26, 2009. When asked what was next for Sean, he revealed his vision to be in the Hawaii Ironman in four years.

Camp No Limits

Over the weekend of November 22-23, 2008, a camp for children with amputations was held in Live Oak, Florida, called Camp No Limits. The vision of Camp No Limits is to be the leading camp for young people with limb loss, and their families, in the United States and abroad and to be recognized for camper satisfaction, amputee education, peer support and age specific physical, recreational and social skill development. At this time there is no other camp available for children with limb loss and their families with the therapeutic programs that Camp No Limits has to offer. Camp No Limits has developed a daily schedule of programs and events that are offered to campers and their families. Event opportunities vary depending on the camp location and season. Camp No Limits offers four programs in their daily schedule. These include Education and Therapy, Sports and Recreation, Creative Arts and Music, and Evening Programs. Paul E Prusakowski and DeAnna M Clough both attended as volunteers to help out at the camp. A good time was had by all as the children enjoyed arts and crafts, kickball, tennis, baseball and many other outdoor adventures. For more information about this camp which is held in 5 locations throughout the United States, please visit their website at http://www.nolimitsfoundation.org/.

Welcome DeAnna M. Clough, MSPO, CO, LO

Gainesville Prosthetics is expanding! DeAnna M. Clough, MSPO, CO joined our team on November 3rd, 2008 and is currently accepting new patients. DeAnna brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the provision of orthotic and prosthetic care, specializing in scoliosis management, advanced lower extremity orthotics, and amputee rehabilitation.

DeAnna is one of only a handful of people nationwide who has a Masters level education in orthotics & prosthetics. Prior to joining Gainesville Prosthetics, DeAnna received her Bachelors of Science decree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois and her Masters of Science in Prosthetic and Orthotics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Following her 2 year residency in Orthotics & Prosthetics at the University of Alabama - Birmingham, DeAnna became certified as an orthotist by the American Board for Certification in O&P and will be completing her prosthetic board exams in early 2009.

Using this strong academic background, she will be involved in the development of outcome studies that will be integrated into our treatment regime. These studies will reach beyond our own practice and community. Through the orthotic & prosthetic software that was developed by our sister company, O&P Digital Technologies, we will be gathering standardized data from more than 100 O&P practices and using that data to improve the care provided by our entire profession, starting right here in Gainesville.

Haiti: Day 8

In addition to the O&P center that the mission group supports, they also support a group home named the Bernice Johnson Center which is both home and school for young women with disabilities. There are currently 12 women who live there and a few of them were in need of our services. Most of today was spent finishing the fabrication of an above the knee prosthesis for one of the girls. Of course everything that could have complicated the project happened. We had only one sheet of the correct plastic to finish the project, so everything had to work without a glitch. I put the plastic in the oven and had 3 people ready to assist. Although one of our helpers was deaf and mute, and the other spoke only Creole, I think I did a pretty good job at using my pantomime skills to make sure that everyone knew what they were supposed to do and when they were supposed to do it. The plastic was ready to come out of the oven and be draped on the cast to be vacuum formed for the final and most important part of the prosthesis. We lifted the hot molten sheet off the tray and carefully placed it on the mold. Everyone was doing their task as planned, but for some reason we weren't getting the vacuum that we needed… it was not pulling in the way it should... we started to scramble, and then we figured out what was going wrong and attempted to fix it... it was just about working and then all of a sudden we lost power in the building as the generator broke down. No vacuum at all, and the completion of the project was at stake... we had to think quickly, and start hand molding the plastic to the mold in hopes that it would take enough of a shape to be functional... it wasn't going to be pretty, but it had to work. About an hour and a half later we got power back, and I got to cut the socket retainer off of the model. We were lucky... it pulled in tight enough to provide a stable support for the inner socket and we were able to complete the project successfully and do the final fitting and gait training as our final task before cleaning up and packing our belongings.



During the late afternoon we were treated to cake and soda while the girls from the Bernice Johnson Center provided musical entertainment for us. A few of the girls played instruments and others sang in groups or solo for us to express their appreciation for the help that we are providing to the community. It was a nice closure to a week of very hard work. I have a feeling that I will be seeing many of these people again some day.





One of these pictures shows the completed prosthesis that was mentioned in today's blog. You may notice that we used the top of a water bottle for the valve in the socket. It worked well, is very inexpensive, and able to be repaired or replaced very easily.

Haiti: Day 7

Today we worked all day seeing more patients and completing as much fabrication as we possibly could in order to make sure we have everything completed before wrapping things up tomorrow. Today we took a few more castings of patient's limbs for new prostheses. Since we are limited on both time and supplies, we will be doing a lot of the fabrication of the new prostheses when we get back to Gainesville and then ship them back to Frankel who will fit them to the patients and help them with gait training and follow up care. By the end of the day we were all pretty exhausted and unwound back at the guesthouse.

Haiti: Day 6

The day started out with a line of patients ready to be seen. The entire day was spent fitting people with limbs and braces. The rehab team hosted a post stroke educational session and worked with a number of people who had recently been affected by strokes. They also worked with some of the patients that had been fitted with their first prostheses to provide some initial gait training to them. The day was very challenging as we tried to assemble devices for our patients with limited supplies and limited time, but overall we were very successful today and really appreciated the assistance of Buddy to help us make the impossible happen in a number of cases. We took a few casts for some devices that we will be fabricating on Thursday to be fitted on Friday. We have no idea how many patients will show up tomorrow or what our next challenges will be, but we will all get a good rest tonight to be ready for what will surely be another jam packed work day.



Caroline works with a lady who was just fitted with an AFO to help her walk better after her stroke, while June and Liz teach a boy to walk with crutches and his new HKAFO's.

Haiti: Day 5

Today the therapists from the team went to an outlying village about an hour and a half away from Les Cayes to assist in providing medical care to those who could not easily access the clinic in Les Cayes. Mike and I stayed back at the O&P facility to work on the fabrication of some of the devices that we took castings for on Monday. This was a great hands on experience for Mike to assist me in all aspects of the fabrication process. Our projects were delayed a bit by lack of power for the first few hours of the day and whenever we would blow the fuse by drawing too much power with the equipment. After we got our work done we had a bit of time to explore the local area by 4 wheeler where we drew the attention of a bunch of local children who came running up the hill to see the foreigners.



Later in the evening we had a few guests visit our guesthouse for an evening of entertainment by Mike. Everyone had a good time relaxing and singing along to Jimmy Buffet, Bob Marley, and other favorite island songs.



Liz took the picture of the children peeking in to see what was happening at the outreach clinic.

Haiti: Day 4

Today was our first day at the clinic. We had a constant stream of patients to see all day long. The therapists worked with patients in a large room where they performed evaluations and treatments on people. Those who were in need of orthotic or prosthetic care were sent back to us in a small examination room that was adjacent to the fabrication room. Our first day was a pretty intense case load of both pediatric and adult patients in need of leg prostheses and various orthotic devices ranging in complexity. After evaluating and measuring a number of patients we all worked together to create a Hip Knee Ankle Foot Orthosis (HKAFO) for a patient with paralysis from mid trunk down. After about 5 hours of intense team work between Mike, Frankel, Buddy (Frankel's assistant), and myself, we were able to have the physical therapy team work with the boy to stand up and begin to learn to walk again for the first time since he became paralyzed.

Pictures include a few of the little patients that we were working with today.

Haiti: Day 2 & 3

Our driver picked us up at the guesthouse and promptly shuttled us directly to the airport to catch our flight. Neither Mike nor I speak Creole, so his assistance getting us straightened out at the tiny connecting airport was invaluable. Our flight was pretty smooth and we were greeted by missionaries at the airport in Les Cayes who drove us to the guesthouse that we will be staying at for the entire journey. We had an opportunity to visit the facility that we would be working in, set up a few of our supplies and prepare ourselves for an intense week.

Pictures are of a view of the mountains between Port au Prince and Les Cayes, the local village just down the mountain from the guesthouse we are staying at, and a shot of the fabrication facility that we will be working on over the next week. We also went tarantula hunting at night and found one in the bushes...

Haiti: Day 1

We were supposed to catch a 10:25 flight from Miami to Port Au Prince and then transfer to another flight from PAP to Les Cayes on the South East coast, where the facility is located. Due to complications with rental car returns at the Miami airport, we missed our check in by 7 minutes and got put on the next flight which was 6 hours later. Haiti can be a bit unpredictable and safety for American travelers is always an issue, so this was not a good thing. This setback left us with no way to catch up with our team, and no way to catch the connecting flight. Instead, we spent the first night in PAP at a guesthouse. Despite the obvious hassle, this detour provided us with an opportunity to see a little bit more of Haiti than we thought we would see.

Attached are a few pictures of some of the sights that we saw in Port au Prince.

Humanitarian Rehabilitation Mission Trip to Haiti

A few months ago a colleague of mine invited me to take his place as the sole Orthotics & Prosthetics clinician on a humanitarian rehabilitation mission trip to Haiti. I have always been interested in getting involved in this sort of work, and gladly accepted the offer to join the team. My current intern, Michael Weiss, wanted an immersion experience in O&P and decided to accompany me on the trip to assist. The plan was for us to travel for 10 days with a team of physical and occupational therapists to a small clinical facility that has been established through The Advantage Program which was set up by Lumiere Medical Ministries. The facility houses a small fabrication laboratory that is staffed by Frankel, a local technician who assists in the fabrication and who also helps maintain patient's devices once the visiting teams have left Haiti.