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SEATTLE, WA / The Seattle Times / Pacific Northwest magazine / March 22, 2009
Turning medical dogma on its head, Dr. Sigvard Hansen helped transform trauma care at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center. He also developed a world-class reputation as an orthopedic surgeon with "golden fingers" and the skills and courage to push the envelope.
By Carol M. Ostrom
SIXTY-PLUS YEARS ago, alone on a broken-down tractor somewhere in the middle of 300 acres of farmland in the Spokane Valley, 10-year-old Sigvard T. Hansen, Jr., figured out what was wrong, and fixed it.
Repeated rendezvous with such balky farm machinery taught Hansen valuable lessons, ones that some day would help him plow a wide swath right through the middle of medical orthodoxy.
True, the looming pixie dust of determinism that had begun to sprinkle the husky youngster didn't signal anything particular about feet — the body part that today is indelibly linked to his name around the world.
But there was plenty about self-reliance, about analyzing the problem, keeping your eye on the goal and, ultimately, making things work.
The grandson of Danish immigrants who settled in the tiny town of Wilbur in Lincoln County, young Hansen, known as Ted, was expected to work very, very hard and always to be honest and fair.
As he sat on the broken tractor, he knew better than to seek out his dad, a demanding high-school principal, athletic coach and teacher who, with his brainy wife, was growing beans and wheat and raising pigs, chickens and cows — plus three children. Hansen, the oldest, knew what his busy dad would say because he'd heard it plenty:
"Just fix it."
Dr. Sigvard Hansen challenged assumptions and helped turn around trauma care:
Norma Jackson's feet became twisted as a result of a lymph system disorder, eventually making it impossible for her to walk.
Hansen operated on one foot in October, and if measures to get the swelling under control succeed, hopes to be able to operate on the second, so Jackson, 52, can walk again.
Benjamin Benschneider / The Seattle Times
A strong, smart young man who entered Whitman College in 1953 to study mechanical engineering, Hansen veered when he ran into theoretical mathematics. He couldn't see it or touch it, so it didn't make sense to him.
Comparative anatomy, though, was real. In medical school at the University of Washington he quickly turned to a specialty tailor-made for his skills: orthopedic surgery.
If times had been different, if he had been different, he might have become just another surgeon. But whoever wrote that script wasn't counting on a couple of Hansen's most enduring, celebrated and sometimes cursed qualities: fearless independence, incredible "3-D" perception, and the drive to muscle past opposition when he's sure he's right.
Ultimately, such qualities would lead to his recognition as "the father of traumatology" for his role in building Harborview Medical Center's vaunted emergency-care system, and to worldwide prominence as a foot and ankle surgeon.
From growing up on a farm and fixing tractors to becoming one of the premier foot doctors in the world, Dr. Sigvard T. Hansen, Jr., has always enjoyed working with his hands. Here he scrubs before doing an ankle replacement. Benjamin Benschneider / The Seattle Times
LIKE MUCH OF the world around it, Harborview in the 1960s was in transition. Treatment of broken, diseased and deformed bones, previously a subset of surgery, was gaining strength as its own discipline. Word of new, drastically different European techniques for fixing broken bones was raising eyebrows.
And at Harborview, plans were under way for a system — formalized as Medic One in 1970 — that would for the first time deliver large numbers of major accident victims to the hospital alive.
Video | From Harborview: The Trauma Story
Into this swirl came Hansen. The former college-fraternity president and football-team captain had spent three years as the lone medical officer at a Navy ammunition depot in Hawaii, where he'd revamped routines and solved long-standing patient issues.
Even while still in training, the young doctor was singled out early on to insert the hardware to fix fractured hips, relying on what others called his "golden fingers" and "uncanny gift" of three-dimensional perception. He was so competent, superiors often didn't bother to supervise. Hansen quickly rose through the ranks and became a teacher himself.
In the late '60s, as students were experimenting with drugs and radical politics, Hansen also was testing new ground. Dumping medical dogma, he adopted the controversial new European techniques for repairing severe fractures of trauma patients.
Standard practice had long been to put patients with thighbone fractures into casts and long-term traction, where they healed slowly, growing weaker and often developing pneumonia or blood clots. Sure there was a better way, Hansen soon began fixing their fractures within hours, nailing metal rods into their broken bones.
As a result, patients quickly began walking, giving them a fighting chance to recover from their other injuries.
Dr. Robert Winquist, later hired by Hansen as a young resident, recalls being awed.
"He wasn't doing anything that was in the books. I asked him early on, 'Where do you get your information?'
"He said, 'I don't ask anybody east of Ninth Avenue' " — the hospital's street — essentially eliminating the entire U.S.
Intent on refining the techniques, Hansen broke rules and sometimes used unorthodox methods, such as using old drain pipes to bend metal rods to better fit inside a patient's leg bone.
"He tried my patience," admits Dr. D. Kay Clawson, then chairman of the orthopedics department at the UW, which manages Harborview. But Clawson, who was instrumental in bringing the techniques to Harborview, also recognized Hansen's talent, and protected him.
At conferences, Hansen and Winquist, who helped refine the techniques and document results, began revealing their methods to other surgeons.
"They would shout 'That's malpractice!' " Winquist recalls. "Pretty much everything we did was considered malpractice."
Hansen ignored them.
Click here to continue reading about Dr. Sigvard Hansen and his golden fingers.
Carol M. Ostrom is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff writer. She can be reached at costrom@seattletimes.com. Benjamin Benschneider is a magazine staff photographer.
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
Dr. Sigvard Hansen challenged assumptions and helped turn around trauma care:
Norma Jackson's feet became twisted as a result of a lymph system disorder, eventually making it impossible for her to walk.
Hansen operated on one foot in October, and if measures to get the swelling under control succeed, hopes to be able to operate on the second, so Jackson, 52, can walk again.
Benjamin Benschneider / The Seattle Times
A strong, smart young man who entered Whitman College in 1953 to study mechanical engineering, Hansen veered when he ran into theoretical mathematics. He couldn't see it or touch it, so it didn't make sense to him.
Comparative anatomy, though, was real. In medical school at the University of Washington he quickly turned to a specialty tailor-made for his skills: orthopedic surgery.
If times had been different, if he had been different, he might have become just another surgeon. But whoever wrote that script wasn't counting on a couple of Hansen's most enduring, celebrated and sometimes cursed qualities: fearless independence, incredible "3-D" perception, and the drive to muscle past opposition when he's sure he's right.
Ultimately, such qualities would lead to his recognition as "the father of traumatology" for his role in building Harborview Medical Center's vaunted emergency-care system, and to worldwide prominence as a foot and ankle surgeon.
From growing up on a farm and fixing tractors to becoming one of the premier foot doctors in the world, Dr. Sigvard T. Hansen, Jr., has always enjoyed working with his hands. Here he scrubs before doing an ankle replacement. Benjamin Benschneider / The Seattle Times
LIKE MUCH OF the world around it, Harborview in the 1960s was in transition. Treatment of broken, diseased and deformed bones, previously a subset of surgery, was gaining strength as its own discipline. Word of new, drastically different European techniques for fixing broken bones was raising eyebrows.
And at Harborview, plans were under way for a system — formalized as Medic One in 1970 — that would for the first time deliver large numbers of major accident victims to the hospital alive.
Video | From Harborview: The Trauma Story
Into this swirl came Hansen. The former college-fraternity president and football-team captain had spent three years as the lone medical officer at a Navy ammunition depot in Hawaii, where he'd revamped routines and solved long-standing patient issues.
Even while still in training, the young doctor was singled out early on to insert the hardware to fix fractured hips, relying on what others called his "golden fingers" and "uncanny gift" of three-dimensional perception. He was so competent, superiors often didn't bother to supervise. Hansen quickly rose through the ranks and became a teacher himself.
In the late '60s, as students were experimenting with drugs and radical politics, Hansen also was testing new ground. Dumping medical dogma, he adopted the controversial new European techniques for repairing severe fractures of trauma patients.
Standard practice had long been to put patients with thighbone fractures into casts and long-term traction, where they healed slowly, growing weaker and often developing pneumonia or blood clots. Sure there was a better way, Hansen soon began fixing their fractures within hours, nailing metal rods into their broken bones.
As a result, patients quickly began walking, giving them a fighting chance to recover from their other injuries.
Dr. Robert Winquist, later hired by Hansen as a young resident, recalls being awed.
"He wasn't doing anything that was in the books. I asked him early on, 'Where do you get your information?'
"He said, 'I don't ask anybody east of Ninth Avenue' " — the hospital's street — essentially eliminating the entire U.S.
Intent on refining the techniques, Hansen broke rules and sometimes used unorthodox methods, such as using old drain pipes to bend metal rods to better fit inside a patient's leg bone.
"He tried my patience," admits Dr. D. Kay Clawson, then chairman of the orthopedics department at the UW, which manages Harborview. But Clawson, who was instrumental in bringing the techniques to Harborview, also recognized Hansen's talent, and protected him.
At conferences, Hansen and Winquist, who helped refine the techniques and document results, began revealing their methods to other surgeons.
"They would shout 'That's malpractice!' " Winquist recalls. "Pretty much everything we did was considered malpractice."
Hansen ignored them.
Click here to continue reading about Dr. Sigvard Hansen and his golden fingers.
Carol M. Ostrom is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff writer. She can be reached at costrom@seattletimes.com. Benjamin Benschneider is a magazine staff photographer.
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
