Honored LV doctor ends year of travel

Monday, Jan. 14, 2002 | 9:33 a.m.

Las Vegas has been known for many things, but pioneering microsurgery wasn't one of them. Now, thanks to Dr. William Zamboni, it is.

Zamboni, who in 1994 founded the University of Nevada School of Medicine's Division of Plastic Surgery, was the 2001 recipient of the Godina Fellowship, which honors promising young microsurgeons around the world. Zamboni's year of travel to microsurgery centers around the world ends today in Cancun, Mexico, when he will deliver a lecture at the annual meeting of the American Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery.

"I'm a little anxious," Zamboni said Thursday from his Las Vegas office, before leaving with his wife, Karen, for the trip. "It's probably the biggest crowd I've ever addressed."

The fellowship is named for Dr. Marko Godina, a leader in reconstructive surgery who died at age 43. Recipients of the fellowship must be 43 or younger at the time of the award. Zamboni, who turned 44 in December, just made the cut.

A Nevada native, Zamboni is a graduate of both the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the medical school where he is now a department chair.

"I'm proud of my home state's reputation," Zamboni said. "We're truly one of the centers of excellence in the country for both our reattachment successes and our research."

The week after receiving the fellowship in January 2001, Zamboni reattached a man's arm, severed at the elbow in a construction accident. The man has regained about 50 percent of the limb's function, Zamboni said.

Before 1994 reattachment patients had to be sent out of state, because Nevada lacked the facilities for the complex surgery. The sooner the surgery takes place the better the chances of success, Zamboni said.

Zamboni is currently researching how a hyperbaric chamber may increase the amount of time that can lapse between a severing and reattachment surgery.

When a limb is severed, white blood cells tend to clump inside the veins, causing the reattachment to fail, Zamboni said. Patients inside the chamber, similar to those used by scuba divers, breathe pure oxygen, which may help preserve the blood flow by blocking the white blood cells, he said.