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Lessons learned as an archaeologist shaped orthopedist’s medical career
Simple ankle fractures easily treated today, may have been death sentences for ancient people, Thomas R. Hackett, MD, noted.
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An orthopedic surgeon at The Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colo., Hackett said his experiences from that job aid him today.
“Long before I even did my first case in orthopedic surgery, I already had years of understanding and working with bone, how bone fractures and how it can be manipulated,” Hackett told Orthopedics Today.
In 1989, Hackett graduated from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo., with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. He then got his hands dirty in the rugged terrain of the Navajo reservation in south central Utah and at Anasazi State Park in Boulder, Utah.
At the Navajo reservation in Utah, Hackett found an Anasazi kitchen, replete with manos and metates for grinding grain, much like mortars and pestles are used today. He also found a painted goat skull, potsherds, baskets, stone tools and scrapers used for tanning hides — discoveries that weaved a tale of a typical day in the life of the Anasazi.
“Honestly, nobody had probably seen that site in 800 years,” Hackett said.
As a reconstructive archaeologist, Hackett took part in digs and worked for museums where he reconstructed tools and weapons for various cultural displays.
Hackett has also studied the Mayans, Incas and Homo habilis that lived in Africa’s Rift Valley. Although Hackett noted that human anatomy has not changed much during the centuries, humans of the past lived tougher lives. Then, a small bone fracture could mean a “death sentence,” he said. Nomadic cultures often left the injured behind with a little food and water when they could no longer keep up with the tribe.
Hackett climbs in the Bolivian Andes on an expedition searching for Inca burial sites.
Image: Hackett TR
“What today is an exceedingly fixable problem, back then may have lead to mortality,” Hackett said.
Hackett, however, has not left behind his old profession.
“I am still in it,” he said. “I go out on hikes and I start going back into search mode again.”
This search mode is a specialized form of tracking that involves the search of possible archaeological sites that reconstructive archaeologists call paleotopographic reconstruction.
“It is trying to look at a valley, plateau or region geographically today and trying to figure out what it looked like a thousand years ago,” Hackett said.
He scans creeks or waterways and figures out where the water used to run and at what elevation a valley or ridge might have been located to recreate where nomadic tribes would have sought shelter.
“We did a lot of … surveys of regions, where you would just spend weeks or days sometimes just walking grids, looking for any sort of evidence of previous settlements. If you found an area that you thought was maybe a sweet spot, then you would start digging there,” he said.
According to Hackett, his knowledge of how bones come apart has allowed him to make a smooth transition into orthopedics. He has seen extreme injuries in ancient human skeletons and these have provided him with a heightened understanding of the pressures and wear bone can withstand, and more practical information, such as the size of a drill bit to use for a small piece of bone.
“What a great sort of foundation and backdrop that was for what I do now,” Hackett said. – by Renee Blisard Buddle
For more information:
Thomas R. Hackett, MD, can be reached at The Steadman Clinic, 181 W. Meadow Dr., Suite 400, Vail, CO 81657; email: rlamborn@steadmanclinic.net or gitanews@hotmail.com.
Disclosure: Hackett has no relevant financial disclosures.