Surgery gone wrong

This young male patient presented with severe knee pain, really limiting his ambulation. Upon examination and interview, we discovered that he broke his tibia a while back and had surgery to repair it. You actually can see the head of the screw they used to hold it in place at the surface of his skin. Still not being able to diagnose the severe knee pain, we requested that he get an x-ray if possible close by and return to clinic the next day. Mystery solved. Viewing the x-ray which showed the surgical repair of the tibia, you can clearly see that one of the prongs of the screws is sticking right into the knee joint, thus every time the patient takes a step, he feels this piercing pain in his knee. Bac Si Ha said that even with his limited resources he could remove the screw, however, since we would be departing this location tomorrow, there is no chance for follow-up. Therefore for liability reasons, we could not relieve this patient’s issue.