Dr. Rodrigo F. Bolaños Girón

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Dr. Rodrigo Bolaños evaluates and treats patients who come to his office seeking relief from the pain they are suffering because of an accident, sports injury, or degenerative illness. He is one of the premier hand surgery specialists in Guatemala, recognized for excellence in the comprehensive management of complex hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder disorders, including fractures and arthritis. With many years of practical experience since his fellowship in 2009, Dr. Bolaños is now performing around 250 hand and upper extremity surgeries per year.

Dr Bolaños and his team can provide a full spectrum of care for various conditions of orthopedic illnesses. To oversee the daily therapeutic needs that help patients resume regular activity, they have direct contact with physical therapists in the city who are dedicated to treating post-operative hand orthopedic surgery patients.

To assure patients of surgical quality on par with the finest hospitals in the world, Dr. Bolaños brings his own state-of-the-art surgical equipment to the operating room. Incisions and suturing can be done in a mini-open form, providing the opportunity for faster and uncomplicated procedures with minimal chance of scarring.

It’s important to Dr Bolaños that his patients understand all facets of their situation and the processes required to solve the problem. He uses tools like photos and videos in the office to illustrate what’s going on, then refers to the diagnostic images for visual confirmation that he can share with the patients. Since Dr. Bolaños works with everyone from little babies and young mothers to the elderly and their caregivers, he takes the time to explain like a teacher, educating in a friendly way with words and methods that make sense.

When Dr. Bolaños needs more than a physical exam to diagnose pain and trauma, he depends on the ultra-modern diagnostic imaging facilities close to his office in Zone 11. X-rays can clearly show bones and fractures, but to see bones in more detail, like density or tumor growth, a CT (computer tomography) scan is required. Soft tissue in the joints and surrounding the bones is visible in minute detail on an MRI image. However, to see how the tissues interact in motion and under stress, a dynamic ultrasound gives the doctor all the information he needs to determine the right procedure to get your range of motion back to top performance level.

The doctor describes a complex, two-stage approach to healing a nonunion fracture in the forearm (ulna bone) using the Masquelet technique. He has a 14-year-old patient who endured previous operations without success, and the bone never healed and had a 10cm gap. In the first phase, Dr. Bolaños filled the bone defect with polymethyl methacrylate cement spacer and fixed the bone with a plate and screws. After four weeks, he took the spacer out and grafted the newly formed membrane with bone autograft. The patient’s forearm bone healed beautifully after 12 weeks, and his arm is completely functional now.

Dr. Bolaños says, “The patient’s best chance for complete success is to get the best treatment early, first thing, soon after the injury. One big part of my practice is to solve complications of late treatment or missed diagnosis. I may not be the first doctor they go to, but when it’s done, I’m the last one they need.”

Some upper extremity cases commonly treated by Dr. Bolaños are:

• Scaphoid fracture is the most common type of carpal bone injury. It often occurs after a fall on the outstretched hand or in a motor vehicle accident, after hyperextension of the wrist joint.
• Dupuytren’s (du-pwe-TRANZ) contracture typically progresses over years, starting as a thickening of the skin on the palm of your hand, and eventually bends the fingers in unnatural angles.
• Rheumatoid Arthritis is an auto-immune disease. When it is not treated early, it can deteriorate the joints and connective tissue, and the patient suffers pain and disfigurement. In many cases, arthroscopic synovectomy can reverse the damage caused by arthritis and joint aging.

Dr. Bolaños is a national representative and Guatemala’s past chairperson of the prestigious “Association for Osteosynthesis – A.O. Trauma” in Davos, Switzerland. As an honored international guest presenter in Switzerland, Dr. Bolaños prepares the educational seminars that will give young doctors the confidence to know they have the cutting-edge skills required to let them perform as well as any doctors in the world.

They are an international community of orthopedic surgeons, musculoskeletal researchers, and operating room personnel dedicated to delivering knowledge, experience, and evidence to improve patient care and outcomes in the field of musculoskeletal trauma. He is also an international member of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons AAOS and of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand ASSH, both preeminent providers of musculoskeletal education and state of the art care for many orthopedic surgeons around the world.

Dr. Bolaños says, “Our hands are full of tiny parts in tiny spaces which need to function precisely in union, like a Swiss clock. They are the real-life structures moving simultaneously in coordination that allow us to use external instruments.” Bi-manual dexterity is not something we think about every day, but it allows us to create the products we are proud of at our jobs, to prepare a nice meal for our family, to type thoughts to share our opinions, and to caress our loved ones at home.

With fluent communication in Spanish, English and German, patients know that their hands are in the best hands with Dr. Rodrigo Bolaños.