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Meet the
surgeon
behind
Operation
Rainbow’s
orthopaedic
program
When you combine a brilliant Taylor K. Smith
mind with a compassionate By Ginger Przybys
heart and gifted hands, you
get orthopedic surgeon Taylor K. Smith, PHOTO BY GINGER PRZYBYS
MD. During the American Academy of
Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) 2011 an- When Dr. Taylor K. Smith travels to Fiji or India or Peru, he’s not on vacation -
nual meeting in San Diego, Dr. Smith he’s saving lives.
was awarded the AAOS Humanitar-
ian Award for his 45 years of tireless ganization whose mission is to provide equipment is donated, but the rest must
work within the medical community. free orthopedic intervention for children be purchased. While everyone donates
In the course of his career, Smith went and young adults suffering from congeni- their time and skill, the organization
on roughly 100 mission trips to provide tal abnormalities or untreated chronic covers the expenses of nurses and aids.
care for over 10,000 underserved people injury. This not-for-profit volunteer Fundraisers and individual donations
in Fiji, the Philippines, Honduras, Peru, program has grown to include ten indi- make possible the crucial work all these
Ecuador and numerous other locations. vidual teams, each conducting at least professionals do.
one mission per year. Teams evaluate
Smith grew up in a family of doctors. As around 300 patients and perform up to One of the most daunting challenges
a child, he often accompanied his grand- 50 surgeries on each mission. ever faced by Smith and his team was
father – a general practitioner - on pa- caring for the victims of the 2010 earth-
tient rounds. During the 1920s and 30s, When beginning a mission, Operation quake in Haiti. This earthquake had a
his grandfather and grandmother would Rainbow is first invited to a country by catastrophic impact on the small island
spend summers traveling throughout the that nation’s Ministry of Health. Once nation, striking with a magnitude of 7.2
southwest, providing free medical care there, they work closely with local doctors and affecting roughly 3.5 million people.
on reservations. Like his grandfather, and nurses, even monitoring patients’ An estimated 250,000 lives were lost
Smith’s father also incorporated humani- progress from afar when necessary via due to the quake and subsequent con-
tarian service into his professional life, the Internet. Such an effort is not cheap. ditions. Operation Rainbow was called
serving as Chief Surgeon at the Shriner’s In the 30 years of Operation Rainbow’s upon to support the care of patients in
Hospital in Houston. existence, over $60 million in medical this tragedy, many of whom had suf-
care has been provided for thousands fered injuries from collapsing buildings
After completing college at UT in Austin of children, all at an actual cost of less and falling debris. Within a few days,
and medical school in Galveston, Smith than $5 million. How do they do it? The three teams arrived in Haiti carrying
spent two years in the Air Force sta- doctors pay their own expenses. Some the necessary equipment and personnel
tioned in Southeast Asia. Following his
service, he moved to San Francisco to
complete his orthopedic training before
returning to Asia to teach and practice
medicine at the University of Hong Kong.
Upon returning to the United States, he
continued his professional career in aca-
demics in Houston and San Francisco.
In 1986, Smith founded the orthopedic
division of Operation Rainbow, an or-
32 | SUNRAYS JUNE 2016 ONLINE: SCTEXAS.ORG
