Three Surgeons Lend Their Talents to Put Kids First

A team of doctors performs orthopedic surgeries on children who might never be able to walk or care for themselves without these procedures.

A former patient walked in for a checkup wearing soccer shorts and carrying a soccer ball. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a big deal, except that a few years prior, this patient had difficulty walking because his legs were badly deformed.

Fast forward to today: William C. Andrews, Jr., MD, and orthopaedic surgeon, felt proud seeing his former patient not only walk, but run and play soccer. Seeing him move as if there never was a problem motivates Andrews and his team of volunteers.

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Andrews, who practices general orthopedics at Ortho Virginia, the largest orthopedic specialty group in Virginia, is the co-founder of Kids First Orthopaedics, a non-profit pediatric orthopaedic surgery team that has evaluated more than 4,000 children and performed over 2,000 operations since 1991 in Central and South America. They also perform pre- and post-operative visits.

Since 2005, Andrews and co-founders Gregory A. Mencio, MD, and Joseph D. Tobias, MD, have been volunteering in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Andrews, Mencio, MD, and director and chief of the Division of Pediatric Orthopedics at Vanderbilt University’s Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, and Joseph D. Tobias, MD, and chief of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, see each other about three times a year.

The trio met at Duke University. Andrews is based in Lynchburg, Mencio’s in Nashville, and Tobias is in Columbus. Near the start of their careers, they volunteered with another organization. The trio thought it would be more productive to create their own nonprofit and work with people they know.

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