Dr. Jean Claude Nizigiyimana
Orthopaedic Surgery Resident
AIC Kijabe Hospital
Kenya
When Help Comes in Time, Hope Learns to Walk Again
The Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) is training and discipling surgeons and related specialists to serve in moments when delayed care can change the course of a life.
For Dr. Jean Claude Nizigiyimana, that truth is deeply personal. As a child, Dr. Nizigiyimana watched his uncle’s life change after a road traffic accident in the year 2000. His uncle suffered a fracture of the neck of the femur, but access to proper orthopaedic care was limited. He was treated with traction for six months.
The bone healed. But it healed incorrectly.
The malunion left him with permanent limb shortening that still affects him today. Before the accident, his uncle was active, working, and providing for his family. Afterward, mobility became difficult, work became limited, and independence slowly slipped away.
What stayed with Dr. Nizigiyimana was the painful reality that his uncle’s life might have been very different if the right care had come in time.
That experience planted a question in his heart:
What happens when help comes too late?
Years later, while Dr. Nizigiyimana was serving as a general practitioner at Ruhengeri Level 2 Teaching Hospital in Rwanda, that question returned through another patient. A middle-aged man came under his care after an open tibial fracture had been inadequately treated. By the time the patient arrived, the infection had reached the bone. He was living with chronic osteomyelitis, pain, and disability. Because of his condition, he could no longer work as he once had.
Dr. Nizigiyimana took time to sit with this patient, listen to his concerns, and encourage him that his life still had value beyond his condition. After a difficult procedure, Dr. Nizigiyimana spoke to him about hope. In that moment, Dr. Nizigiyimana silently prayed for him, asking God to bring healing not only to his body but also to his heart.
For Dr. Nizigiyimana, seeing the devastating impact of delayed treatment on his patient’s life became a defining moment.
He saw that orthopaedic surgery was not only about repairing bones. It was about restoring mobility, dignity, livelihood, and hope.
That moment helped confirm Dr. Nizigiyimana’s calling. He did not simply want to become a surgeon. He wanted to become the kind of surgeon who arrives before hope is lost.
Now, as a first-year PAACS orthopaedic surgery resident at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kenya, Dr. Nizigiyimana is being trained and discipled to provide excellent surgical care with Christ-centered compassion.
For Dr. Nizigiyimana, this is the kind of care his uncle and the patient at Ruhengeri required. And it is the kind of care many communities across Africa still need.
Because of PAACS, surgeons and related specialists are being equipped to serve where suffering has lasted too long, bringing skilled hands, compassionate care, and the hope of Christ.
And because of you, residents like Dr. Nizigiyimana are being equipped to care for patients who might otherwise be forgotten. Your prayers and generosity are part of every life touched through this mission. You are helping hope learn to walk again.
Dr. Nizigiyimana says with deep gratitude:
“To those who pray for me and support PAACS, I want to say thank you. Your prayers and generosity have a real and daily impact. They make it possible for patients to receive care and for trainees like me to be formed both professionally and spiritually. You are part of every life touched through this work, and I am deeply grateful.”
