by Dr. Jim Walker
I first became aware of the significance of long bone fractures in DR Congo on my first PCP trip. While making rounds at Karawa Hospital, I met a patient who sustained a femur fracture in a motorcycle accident. The same accident in which his wife was killed left him with a fracture that took months to heal.
In low resource countries, fractures of the long bones of arms and legs are often treated with traction or casting with healing times of three or more months. In DR Congo, where the average income is one to two dollars per day, when someone is unable to work for three months, it can devastate a family’s finances.
That’s where SIGN Fracture Care comes in. SIGN Fracture Care is an innovative method using surgical implants. Patients with long bone fractures can return to work as quickly as one week. In their words, SIGN seeks to build orthopedic capacity in low resource countries by providing orthopedic training, instrument sets, and an ongoing supply of implants. They require SIGN surgeons to report their patient cases to the SIGN database and send x-rays of the fractures pre-and post surgery.
In 2025, two CEUM doctors—Dr. Vincent and Dr. Jeannot—were selected in 2025 to receive SIGN Fracture Care training in Cameroon. Thanks to an International Rotary Grant, their training, travel, meals, and surgical equipment were fully funded. They have now completed their training and returned to Karawa, where they are preparing for the next steps toward providing faster recoveries and safer surgeries for patients in the region. Congratulations to them both!
