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A vascular surgeon with a knack for problem-solving and an engineering mindset is one way of describing Keenan Gibson, DO, but don’t leave out his passion for global health. Gibson, a 2022 graduate from UNT Health Fort Worth’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, just returned from a two-and-a-half-week medical mission trip to Ghana, which gave him his first opportunity to make an impact in global health.

Gibson, who is in his research year at his vascular surgery residency at UC Davis Health in California, jumped at the opportunity to go on the mission trip, which was through the International Surgical Health Initiative. While they were there, the team worked with local physicians and health care providers to perform surgeries, but also to teach and educate them. That included 3D-printed tourniquets and arms that Gibson made himself.

“We were working to develop a new dialysis center in Ghana and to standardize surgical education to develop 3D printed simulators to teach residents to perform surgeries,” Gibson said. “They loved the arms and tourniquets I made for them, and hopefully it will help them be more prepared to help save lives.”

Up at 7 a.m. and working until midnight most days didn’t faze Gibson in the least because the mission trip was also an opportunity for him to develop global mission trips for vascular surgeons, which, outside of the military, are exceptionally rare. Gibson is in the United States Air Force, having been commissioned as a Captain at graduation in 2022, and wants to find ways to get vascular surgeons more involved in global health.

His interest in surgery came before medical school, but it was his time at TCOM that showed him the global mission field as a member of the ROME Rural Scholars Program.

“TCOM did a great job in training and getting me prepared to be the only one in a resource-limited environment like I was in the final few days in Ghana,” Gibson said. “I was really there by myself and just a few other residents, but I was very comfortable.”

Gibson had the perfect global health mentor in the ROME program at TCOM with the now-retired Dr. John Gibson, the former director of the Office of Rural Medical Education.

“Keenan was the son I never had,” said John Gibson with a laugh.

The pair is not related, but they have the same passion for global medicine. Dr. John Gibson spent years going overseas on medical mission trips to Thailand, even spending his first few years of retirement there, and saw something special in Keenan.

“He was a real go-getter and I would say almost the prototype student for ROME,” Gibson said. “He was all in on all of the projects we were doing and just a great guy. Many places need well-trained physicians from around the world to go in and teach and make other medical students really good doctors and really good people.”

“They love doing medical care and not for money or fame. They all understand that they were blessed to go to a medical school like TCOM and grow up in the United States, but to see that desire to give back is very satisfying. I saw that in Keenan as a medical student, and he is just a great ambassador for TCOM. What he is doing doesn’t surprise me in the least, and I’m very proud of him.”

Keenan’s goal of wanting a vascular surgery-specific mission trip has come to fruition, even faster than he probably thought. In November, he will be in Honduras for 10 days with other surgeons to do 100 arteriovenous fistula creations for dialysis. This surgery is for patients who need dialysis for kidney failure and allows for long-term access and treatment for chronic kidney disease.

One of the benefits of having a vascular surgeon as opposed to a general surgeon on the mission trips is for a more durable fistula creation, which is one of their specialties.

“This is life-sustaining therapy that is necessary with end-stage renal disease,” Gibson said. “That’s why dialysis will support this, and the benefit of having vascular surgeons do this is that the alternative to use is central lines or PICC lines (peripherally inserted central catheter), which we don’t like because they often get infected. The quality of care provided is equivalent to what American patients receive, which is what they deserve.”

Gibson will be on one of two surgical teams, two general and two vascular, on the trip to Honduras. The goal will be the same as it was for the trip to Africa.

“I want to do some education,” Gibson said. “The main goal is not to do something temporary, but to put programs in place because some of the infrastructure is just not there. In Ghana, we had some patients coming in from over 100 miles away to get surgeries.”

“It’s very challenging, but everyone they are the most grateful and generous people you will ever meet. To them, you are giving them this opportunity to work again, to take care of their families again, and they were all so grateful.”

The engineering mindset of Gibson led him to redesign his apartment into a 3D printing workshop so he could have more of the arms, tourniquets, and simulators for the next global mission trip to help train the local health care providers to save more lives. The trips for Gibson aren’t about a chance to globetrot across the world; it’s a chance to make a difference.
“This is exciting because this is a big opportunity,” he said. “Doing vascular care globally is tricky because you have to find areas that will support you. I wouldn’t do surgery if I didn’t think they had a nephrologist to follow them. The goal should be to go there and help them develop and create their own methods for this service, not that I’m going over there to help them just this one time, but to help educate them.”

“The best part about Ghana was the relationships with the patients and hospital staff, who I would love to go see because they were all so welcoming.”

As for his remaining time in residency, Gibson still has over two years left of training before he will be deployed by the Air Force to “wherever Uncle Sam points me.”

His specialty is one of the rarest in the country, if not the world. Vascular surgeons make up less than 1% of active physicians in the United States, and a 2021 study found there were fewer than 4,000 worldwide. International medical missions are almost exclusively how patients in many countries get this specialized care. ROME students at TCOM make medical mission trips to West Texas twice a year. There is a trip to Guatemala during spring break and other opportunities throughout the year for students to get exposure to providing care in underserved areas of the United States or globally.

“Medical students are often marginalized from the medical decision-making these days; in many places, they are passive observers,” said John Gibson. “But that’s not true for the ROME students. They get experiences that will help shape them into leaders.”

You don’t have to look any further than Dr. Keenan Gibson as one of those leaders.

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