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Paediatric Orthopaedics Unit

The Arthroscopic Surgery Unit (UCA, according to the Spanish acronym) of Dr. Mikel Sánchez expands its services in Vitoria-Gasteiz with the incorporation of two of the best international specialists in paediatric traumatology and orthopaedics and microsurgery. Doctors Gorka Knörr and Lucía Guidali will lead the start-up process of the new paediatric orthopaedics and traumatology unit, the only one of its kind in the northern area of Spain, which will allow these patients to be treated without having to travel to other cities such as Barcelona or Madrid.

The UCA, a pioneering centre in traumatology and orthopaedic surgery led by Dr. Mikel Sánchez in Vitoria-Gasteiz, takes an important step in its commitment to alleviate and minimise the functional limitation of its patients by incorporating a unit aimed exclusively at the infancy stage. This unit allows children with complex conditions or pathologies to be treated in the capital city of Alava. Until now, these children had to be referred to other cities such as Barcelona or Madrid, because up until now, there was no similar unit in the Basque Country or in the entire northern part of Spain.

Both specialists, international experts in the fields of paediatric traumatology and orthopaedics and microsurgery,  assist their patients at the facilities of the UCA, which are located at the Vithas San José Hospital.

Medical team

Gorka Knörr

Gorka Knörr, an orthopaedic surgeon and paediatric orthopaedic
surgeon from Vitoria, who has fulfilled his academic education
mainly in France, has lead in recent years the paediatric traumatology
departments of the Sant Joan de Déu and Vall d'Hebron hospitals
in Barcelona.

By joining the UCA, Knörr also achieves one of his personal objectives: to bring the knowledge he has acquired in other parts of the country to his home town so that children and families in Vitoria can benefit from it. In recent years Knörr has devoted part of his time carrying out more than twenty cooperation missions in Burkina Faso, Vietnam, Benin or Bolivia.

Lucía Guidali

Dr. Lucía Guidali is a physician from the University of Buenos Aires and a traumatologist specialized in pediatric orthopedics at the J.P. Garrahan Hospital in Buenos Aires, a pediatric center of reference in public health and high complexity in Argentina. Since then, she collaborates with Dr. Gorka Knörr's team at HM Nens Hospital in Barcelona and since 2023 she is part of the Children's Orthopedics Unit of the Arthroscopic Surgery Unit in Vitoria.

Dr. Guidali is co-author of several scientific communications in the fields of orthopedics and traumatology, both in adult and pediatric patients.

Until now, paediatric trauma was closely linked to general trauma, and for this reason there was not a large group of professionals specialized in the infancy stage. As there is no formal training in Spain, unlike in France, it is a field in start-up phase.

However, thanks to these two new additions and to the research work of the UCA, this  unit aims to form an elite project in paediatric traumatology and orthopaedics at European level, thus focusing on a specialty that, until now, has had to always live in the shadow of adults.