AUBURN — Dr. Paul Cain recently put out the call: He’d like a few spare legs.

The prosthetics would be added to an active collection of screws, plates and braces. Cain, an orthopedic surgeon and team physician for Bates College Athletics, has treated thousands of local athletes over the years. This winter, for the third time, he’ll head to Honduras to doctor there, his medical donations in tow.

“It’s a nice getaway, a little dangerous,” Cain said. “There are machetes and shotguns, and you can’t leave the hotel. I get away from the office, the beeper, the phone calls — that’s the getaway part.”

Cain, 58, grew up in Vermont. In high school, he played football and soccer and skied on the ski team. He studied at the University of Vermont, first getting a bachelor’s degree in English, then graduating from the College of Medicine. He trained in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

“My interest was medicine first, orthopedics second and (then I) gravitated toward sports medicine,” he said.

Cain has been with Central Maine Orthopedics for 25 years. He’s stood on countless sidelines and watched countless games, on field and ice, on both sides of the Androscoggin River.

In addition to his work now at Bates, he was team physician for the Lewiston Maineiacs.

Cain said he likes working with motivated, active patients. He’s frequently on the go, cycling, golfing, hiking and boating. He plans to tackle the 50-mile route again during next month’s Dempsey Challenge.

He’s also on call for orthopedic trauma care at Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center one night a week.

“This summer’s been a busy summer, unfortunately,” Cain said.

His work here is often sports injury-related. In Honduras, where he’s traveled with Dr. Michael Saraydaria, it’s a mix of congenital problems (bowed legs, clubbed feet) and severe injuries that never healed right, like children with torn cartilage and locked knees.

“These kids are just limping along; they can’t fully straighten it or bend it,” Cain said. “We’re able to carve out that disc (in the knee), and they get their motion back.”

In a week at the Ruth Paz Clinic he’s able to do 15 to 20 surgeries. “I want to do more than just Honduras, eventually,” he said.

Cain and his wife, Kathryn, recently moved to Oxford. They raised their three children in Auburn and all three went into medicine. One daughter is in nursing school, another is at a cardiac catheterization lab in Manhattan and a son works in medical sales out of state.

“Initially they said they would never do what I do,” Cain said. “Eventually, they came around.”

Having treated so many local people over the years, Cain has had other doctors lament that “it must be hard to go to a store and see all your patients around.”

He insists it’s not.

“I’d be disappointed if I never saw my patients outside of the office,” Cain said. “It’s great to see the people later in life; that’s very gratifying. When they bring their kids in, it makes me feel old.”

Know someone everyone knows? We’re always looking for feature ideas. Contact staff writer Kathryn Skelton at 689-2844 or kskelton@sunjournal.com

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