Stacia Neale, Fundraising Operations for HealthyKids International (HKI), is blogging on her experiences as she accompanies the SickKids No Boundaries team to Ethiopia to oversee the filming of a documentary. Read all her posts here.
On Wednesday, Graeme, our videographer, and I spent the day with Dr. Andrew Howard, an orthopaedic surgeon from SickKids. We accompanied him on his rounds as he visited patients at the Black Lion Hospital Paediatric Orthopaedic Clinic and performed surgeries. Unlike the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Clinic, the Ortho space is brightly lit and had lots of room for multiple-patient consultation. Similar to our ENT experience however, was the immense line-up of people looking to be seen by Dr. Howard and his Black Lion colleagues.
While it wasn’t always apparent what the problem was with the ENT patients, the Ortho patients’ symptoms were almost always obvious - lots of limps and clubfeet, casts and humps. While Dr. Howard consulted on the more advanced cases, the Black Lion Ortho Residents saw a steady stream of kids who were given corrective footwear (sturdy leather shoes, attached shoulder length apart at the heal by a long, flat metal bar). 
One boy came into the clinic and he couldn’t have been more than five-feet tall. He seemed fine to me and I asked Dr. Howard about his condition. It turns out the boy is 15 years old. It was a sharp reminder that not all orthopaedic deficiencies are a result of birth defects. Often, in developing nations, they are also a result of malnutrition.
Graeme and I got lots of good footage for the video and still had time to play with the kids. Dr. Howard saw at least 35 children in the time we were there, and judging from the waiting crowd, could have seen 35 more. Each patient came with at least one family member who had his or her x-rays. Like the ENT clinic, parents were included in the consultation and advised of next steps in treatment. Dr. Howard identified a handful of patients on whom he could operate, and we left the clinic and headed to surgery.