Dr. Hinchcliff’s empathy made an impression on them, Lindsay says. “When you meet a lot of doctors, you realize some have empathy and some don’t. Dr. Hinchcliff does.” Sam adds: “The first day we met her, she spent at least two hours with us. Then she came every day, for at least an hour, sometimes three hours. I asked her a million questions, and she answered every single one until I couldn’t think of any more to ask. “Her bedside manner was absolutely over the top,” he continues. “She was candid about what happened, she was incredible at describing what she was going to do, and she told me to let her know the level at which I wanted to hear or see what Ella’s arm was like. I told her I couldn’t stomach it and I couldn’t mentally handle it, but if my kid had to handle it, I would, too.”
ENDURING THE EXTREME
Over the next month that Ella was a patient at Rady Children’s, there was, in fact, a lot to handle. The first step was to find Ella’s radial artery, which sends oxygenated blood to the lower arm and the hand. “That first surgery was supposed to be a basic surgery, but it ended up being one of the most important,” Sam recalls. Dr. Hinchcliff found the radial artery, which was fortunately still intact. She also evaluated the remaining muscles and tendons, debriding those that were not viable and connecting others to set the groundwork for future function. “She gave that a 50/50 chance of succeeding,” Sam says, “and at the time we didn’t know how significant it would be.” Finding the radial artery improved Ella’s candidacy for a muscle and skin transplant surgery, called a free tissue transfer, which could be used to replace the missing tissue in her arm. In this reconstructive technique, surgeons remove a piece of tissue from one site where it has a blood supply and connect the vessels feeding that muscle and skin to a blood vessel at another site. In Ella’s case, the
TOP: Ella works to get her strength back up BOTTOM: Ella’s family dubbed her injured arm her “tough arm”
donor site was the muscle in her upper left back, which was removed and attached to the injured area of her arm. “The human body is nice in that it has a lot of spare parts and a lot of redundancies, so there are certain muscles you can do this with,” Dr. Hinchcliff explains. “The muscle we took from Ella’s back is a workhorse muscle in that it’s often used in scenarios like this where you don’t need them as intended.”
Dr. Hinchcliff performed
THAT FIRST SURGERY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BASIC SURGERY, BUT IT ENDED UP BEING ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT.
Ella’s surgery in conjunction with one of her partners from UC San Diego to ensure the surgery was safe and efficient. After surgery, Ella was transferred
20 HEALTHY KIDS MAGAZINE WINTER 2023
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