San Baw (Burmese: စံဘော်, pronounced [sàɰ̃ bɔ̀]; 29 June 1922 – 7 December 1984) was a Burmese orthopaedic surgeon. He is best known for pioneering "the use of ivory hip prostheses to replace ununited fractures of the neck of the femur," and developing "a new technique for treating infantile pseudoarthrosis of the tibia."^[1][2] As the chief orthopaedic surgeon at Mandalay General Hospital (1957–1975) and at Rangoon General Hospital (1975–1980), he performed over 300 ivory hip prosthesis surgeries over his career. He also taught orthopaedics at the Institute of Medicine, Mandalay and at the Institute of Medicine 1, Rangoon throughout his career.

After his death from complications from lung cancer in 1984, his wife Prof. Myint Myint Khin through the Burma Medical Association established the Dr. San Baw Prize for Research. In 2019, their son Myint Zan and the Myanmar Orthopaedic Society established the Dr. San Baw Research Fund to support orthopedic research and training activities.

San Baw was born on 29 June 1922 to Daw Si Si and U Thaw Zan in Tapun, a small town 220km northwest of Rangoon (Yangon) in British Burma.^[3] His parents apparently were well-to-do and lived around the country as he went to St. Agnes' Convent in Kalaw in the country's northeast for the first few years of primary school, and attended Rangoon's St. Paul's English High School from latter primary school to high school, graduating in 1942.^[4] However, the arrival of World War II in late 1941 had shut down all the few colleges in the country, and it was only in 1944 that he was able to enroll at the wartime medical school,^[4] founded a year earlier by Drs. Ba Than, S. Sen and Yin May.^[5] After the war, he enrolled at the just rechristened Faculty of Medicine of Rangoon University, graduating with an MBBS in March 1950.^[4]

San Baw started his medical career at Rangoon General Hospital (RGH) in June 1950. There, he specialized in general and orthopaedic surgery, and trained under American surgeon P.F. Greene from 1951 to 1954, helping to establish the Department of Orthopaedics at RGH. From 1954 to 1957, he pursued postgraduate studies in orthopaedics at the University of Pennsylvania medical school on a state scholarship, and studied under professors Paul C. Colonna and J.T. Nicholson.^[6] He graduated with an MD and an MS in orthopedics in 1958.^[3][7] Upon his return from the US in November 1957,^{[note 1]} he was appointed chief of orthopaedic surgery at Mandalay General Hospital (MGH), a teaching hospital in Mandalay.^[8]

San Baw went on to become the country's preeminent orthopaedic surgeon. He led the orthopaedic surgery department at MGH from 1957 to 1975, and that at RGH from 1975 to 1980 as well as helped to establish the practice of microsurgery at RGH and its affiliates in 1978.^[9] He also taught orthopaedics at Mandalay Medical College (later renamed the Institute of Medicine, Mandalay) from 1957 to 1975, and the Institute of Medicine 1, Rangoon (his alma mater, renamed) as a lecturer in orthopaedics from 1975 to 1980.^[3][9] He also made a number of contributions to the orthopaedic field. He is best known for pioneering the use of "ivory hip prostheses to replace ununited fractures of the neck of the femur," and for developing "a new technique for treating infantile pseudoarthrosis of the tibia."^[1][2][9]

San Baw retired in October 1980, at the age of 58. A heavy smoker since he was ten, San Baw spent his last years fighting lung cancer. According to his son, smoking was a "sensitive" topic for him, and even his wife and son had to approach the subject "with great care". He died on 7 December 1984 in Mandalay from complications from lung cancer.^[17][18] He was 62.

San Baw married Myint Myint Khin, a fellow Rangoon medical school classmate, in 1953.^[3][1] Both were graduates of the class of 1950. Also a graduate of Penn Medicine, she followed him to Mandalay in 1960 after being appointed Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Mandalay. After his death, she abruptly resigned from her post as head of the Department of Medicine, and served as a consultant at the World Health Organization, based out of New Delhi, from 1985 to 1991. She had a second career as a writer, publishing 13 books between 1996 and 2013. Her last published work Poetry for Me, an English language poetry book, was inspired by her late husband.^[1] The couple had a son, Myint Zan, a former professor of law, who taught at universities in Malaysia, Australia, the South Pacific and the United States from 1989 to 2016.^[1][11]

San Baw's assistants carried on ivory hip replacements for at least until 1995. In all, Dr. San Baw and his successors implanted over 500 handmade ivory hip replacements between 1960 and 1995.^[8] As of 2014, at least one patient who had received an ivory hip replacement performed by San Baw's former assistant Prof. Meik in 1994, was still alive; the then 93-year-old patient reported that she had been using her ivory hip without limitation for the past 20 years.^{[note 2]}

San Baw died in relative obscurity. His contributions were not widely known internationally. According to his son, no international publications carried the news. The Penn Medicine magazine carried a short notice of San Baw's death with a brief description of his achievements in 1988, only after Myint Zan had contacted them.^[18] (In contrast, Myint Myint Khin's death in 2014 was carried by Burmese publications as well as by at least one international journal The BMJ.^{[note 3]}) The BSPP government had not conferred any titles to him in recognition of his achievements.^{[note 4]}

San Baw's family has tried to keep his memory alive. Right after his death, Myint Myint Khin established the Dr. San Baw Prize for Research through the Burma Medical Association to encourage medical research in the country.^[3][19] However, it was funded only by a relatively small seed amount (30,000 kyats),^[19] and it is unclear if more funds were added later or how long the prize lasted. Myint Myint Khin died in 2014. In 2019, Myint Zan and the Myanmar Orthopaedic Society established Dr. San Baw Research Fund to be used for "various research activities, primarily—but not solely—related to orthopedic research and training".^[11]

San Baw's work was forgotten internationally until the 2010s. A UK-based Polish orthopaedic surgeon Bartlomiej Szostakowski became interested in San Baw's career by accident,^[2] and in 2017, he and his two other colleagues from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital published a paper on ivory hemiarthroplasty that recounted the work and findings of San Baw and his team.^[8] The University of Pennsylvania Department of Orthopedic Surgery later agreed to hold annual lectures in Dr. San Baw's memory after Myint Zan made a donation to the school.^[2] In 2018, at the inaugural Dr. San Baw GM’58 Honorary Lecture in Orthopedic Innovation, Dr. Szostakowski gave the inaugural lecture, "Dr. San Baw: The Forgotten Innovator in Orthopedic Biologic Reconstruction".^[20] According to Myint Zan, the school will hold the lecture annually "in perpetuity".^[11] Myint Zan also established the San Baw, MD, GM’58 Memorial Fund in Palliative Oncology in support of Palliative Care at Penn Medicine.^[21]