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This is the fourth year that Dr. Joseph Sheppard has traveled to Honduras and transformed lives through surgeries.

In five days, the orthopedic surgeon examined 85 patients and operated on 35 of them at Hospital Escuela, a teaching hospital in Tegucigalpa, the country's capital.

On Jan. 5, Sheppard was accompanied to Honduras by a team that included Dr. Kimberly Lindberg, a fifth-year orthopedic resident at University of Arizona College of Medicine; Victor Cordero and Mary Scunziano, operating room surgical technicians at University Medical Center; and Dr. Daniel Switlick, a former UA hand-surgery resident who is now an orthopedic surgeon in Roseville, Calif.

Sheppard, who is also an associate professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the UA College of Medicine, began his day at 6 a.m. giving lectures to plastic-surgery residents at Hospital Escuela.

Those residents later learned from him while he worked in the operating room into the night.

The youngest patient was 4 months old, and the oldest was 67. The majority of the pediatric patients were born with malformations of the hands and upper extremities. Some suffered from burns or were injured in motor vehicle collisions, said Sheppard, 55.

Most of the adults were injured in work-related accidents or were attacked with machetes, Sheppard said. He said workers use machetes to clear land or in the harvesting of bananas and coffee.

One case that touched Sheppard was that of a 12-year-old girl who wasn't able to bend her elbow. She was born with a condition that affected the nerves in her arm.

"When her parents and the girl were told that we could fix the condition, they broke down crying because they were touched. Local doctors figured the girl could be helped, but they did not know how to do the operation," Sheppard explained.

Sheppard and his team transferred muscle from the girl's chest wall to her elbow during a five-hour procedure, and she now can bend her arm.

"The principle behind this program is to perform surgery on patients who would not otherwise receive treatment, and teach residents so they can care for their communities," said Sheppard, a volunteer with Hand Surgery Overseas, which is affiliated with Health Volunteers Overseas.

"I get great satisfaction from being able to do this," Sheppard said.

Health Volunteers Overseas is a private, non-profit group that works to improve health care across the globe. According to the group's Web site, there is a global shortage of well-trained health workers, and 57 countries — mostly in Africa and Asia — are facing severe crises.

For 20 years, the organization has designed clinical education programs for health-care workers in more than 40 countries.

There are programs in child health, primary care, trauma and rehabilitation, essential surgical care, oral health, infectious disease, nursing education and burn management.

In addition to physicians, the organization sends dentists, nurse educators, physical therapists, nurse anesthetists and other skilled professionals who share their time and expertise.

The need for medical care is great in Honduras, Sheppard said, adding that 60 patients needed surgery, but the medical team could attend to only 35 while it was there. A team of volunteers goes every three months and will pick up where Sheppard and his crew left off.

For Scunziano, 48, this was her second visit to Honduras with Sheppard.

Scunziano assisted doctors in the surgeries, including the operation on the 12-year-old girl who could not bend her arm.

"That was a pretty big surgery for us," recalled Scunziano, who still can picture the reaction of the girl's parents once it hit them that their daughter would be able to use her arm. Scunziano also was struck by the number of children who are born with webbed fingers and toes, and the surgeries performed that corrected the malformations.

"On our last day, we looked up from the parking lot at the hospital, and patients were waving their hands out of the windows. They were so grateful," she said.

"We only scratched the surface. I wish we could have stayed longer and done much more," said Scunziano, who plans on volunteering again.