"A 6-year-old girl with eyes the color of dark chocolate walks into an exam room in a clinic in downtown Beirut. It's evident that Kenzi Madhoun has a flare for fashion. She's wearing a white dress with tassles. Her face is framed beneath a pink straw hat that covers a scar above her hairline. On her left hand, there's an inked outline of a little heart. Her right arm, however, is missing."
""The biggest question is how can I improve the quality of that remnant of her upper arm," says Abu-Sittah, "because that is the determinant of the quality of the prosthetic that she'll get." Kenzi walks with confidence as Abu-Sittah escorts her and her father into the exam room. During Abu-Sittah's assessment of Kenzi, he's not just looking at her as the 6-year-old she is today."
Kenzi Madhoun is a 6-year-old girl from Gaza with a missing right arm, a scar above her hairline, and prior surgeries in Egypt and Turkey. Her father seeks further care so she can perform two-handed activities and manage everyday tasks independently. Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a reconstructive and plastic surgeon and professor of conflict medicine, assesses her overall condition and the arm remnant. Surgical planning focuses on improving the remnant’s quality because that determines prosthetic function. The plan anticipates staged operations to reconstruct for growth and to maximize long-term prosthetic outcomes.
Read at www.npr.org
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