In August 2023, upon learning that her elderly father was being discharged from a local hospital, Kelly Beavers slipped and fell while running to her car in a downpour.
“I tried to catch myself and knew I hurt my wrist but had no idea about my right shoulder,” said Beavers, 48, who cares for her father full time. “Ten minutes after we got home, he had to go right back to the hospital and was unresponsive on a ventilator for three weeks. I wasn’t worried about myself — I was concerned about my dad.”
By January, Beavers couldn’t ignore her pain any longer. As a side sleeper, she couldn’t turn on her right side, and radiating pain between her right shoulder and elbow woke her up throughout the night. She also couldn’t use her dominant side to hoist her father when he fell. Beavers returned to the hospital where she sustained the injury and saw a doctor who quickly diagnosed her with a rotator cuff injury.
“I told him I don’t have insurance because I take care of my dad,” she said. “He tried to get me hooked up with someone who could fix it for a low cost, but that never worked out.”
Beavers learned about Vanderbilt Orthopaedics Outreach Day, an event initially affiliated with the American Society for Surgery of the Hand’s Touching Hands domestic initiative founded in 2016.
Starting in 2017, Vanderbilt University Medical Center became the second site in the country to host the event, offering free surgical treatment to qualifying uninsured or underinsured Middle Tennesseans. VUMC has kept it going ever since. Charis Health Center is one of five Middle Tennessee free or low-cost clinics that have referred patients to the Orthopaedics Outreach Day over the past eight years.
“The leadership at Vanderbilt has been very generous in supporting a surgical Outreach Day for the eighth consecutive year. It takes a tremendous amount of medical equipment, staffing resources, surgical supplies and space to perform these surgeries and provide quality peri- and post-operative care for our patients,” said Donald Lee, MD, professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Vanderbilt Orthopaedics Outreach Day founding director. “It shows the commitment that Vanderbilt and our volunteers have to help those in need in the Middle Tennessee area.”
Though hopeful she’d qualify for Orthopaedics Outreach Day, Beavers wasn’t sure if she could make it from March to August.
“It was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life, and I’ve gone through childbirth,” said Beavers, who refuses to take anything more than over-the-counter pain medication so she’s always alert in case her father needs her. “The next thing I knew, an angel from Vanderbilt called and asked me to come in to see if I qualify. I went to the Shade Tree Clinic [Vanderbilt’s student-run free clinic], saw Dr. Eric Bowman, and from there, it was one answered prayer after another. I wasn’t hopeless anymore because I knew it would be fixed, and that made the pain bearable.”
Helping others helps everyone
In addition to Beavers’ rotator cuff repair, 13 other surgeries were performed at the 2024 Orthopaedics Outreach Day, including ACL reconstruction, total knee arthroplasty, carpal tunnel releases and ganglion cyst excision. Including the 2024 surgeries, 106 free surgeries have been performed in the past eight years.
This year, more than 60 participating surgeons, fellow and resident surgeons, attending anesthesiologists and certified registered nurse anesthetists, surgery center staff and Spanish interpreters volunteered their time on an August Saturday to help those who couldn’t otherwise afford it, in addition to volunteers who coordinated patient referrals in the months leading up to the event, and participating organizations and businesses that donated medical equipment and food for the volunteers.
According to Lee, many volunteers return every year, and new volunteers join up after hearing about the event, which doubles as a team-building event and has a different energy than a regular surgery day.
“I truly feel that I gain more from doing this event than the patients. It brings into perspective the reason we all went into medicine in the first place,” said Eric Bowman, MD, MPH, associate professor of Orthopaedic Surgery. “The appreciation of these patients is unbelievable.”
‘If I did too much, it would hurt more’
Receiving a free surgery may sound like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but Christine Heyse, 63, made her second visit to Orthopaedics Outreach Day this year after a successful carpal tunnel surgery on her left hand in 2022.
“I’ve been a hairdresser for 43 years, so I knew I’d get it eventually,” said Heyse, a single parent. “I first noticed the pain years ago but made modifications. I used to sleep with braces on; then, I started sleeping on my hands so they wouldn’t curl up at night. I worked less because if I did too much, it would hurt more, but that limited my income.”
Heyse is no stranger to ailments: She’s had two bouts with cancer — Hodgkin’s lymphoma and renal — and a heart attack. Due to preexisting conditions and her income level as a hairdresser, she can’t afford insurance premiums. Like Beavers, Heyse works through Charis Health Center, which led her to Orthopaedics Outreach Day for the first time.
She was thrilled with the first surgery on her nondominant hand and put off having the second done on her right hand because she knew it would be more complicated — her elbow was involved — and her recovery period would be longer. After a series of painful episodes, she knew it was time.
“It felt like someone put lighter fluid on me, and the burn would go right up my arm,” she said. “It was torture: I had to work with an ice pack on my neck just to get through the day.”
Within days of her second carpal tunnel surgery, Heyse could move all her fingers, make a fist, open her hand and use her toothbrush.
“People think if you’re poor or don’t have insurance, you have to suffer, but this program helps people live a good life,” she said. “I’m very active, do 5Ks and water aerobics five days a week because I’m grateful for the help and want to make sure that everything Vanderbilt has done for me isn’t in vain.”
