Operation Smile

I have been in private practice in plastic and reconstructive surgery for thirty-three years since completing my fellowship training. As I have aged my practice has changed from reconstructive to almost entirely cosmetic practice. I have enjoyed cosmetic surgery and the great variety of patients I have met and made happy. However I have always regretted giving up other aspects of my specialty such as trauma reconstruction and cleft lip and palate surgery on infants.

My bucket list included performing cleft lip and palate surgery on some mission trips.  It is so rewarding to correct a severe cleft lip and allow a child to smile again without covering his face. My problem was renewing my training before going. Fortunately about a year and half ago an opportunity arose for me to retrain myself in these skills. A good friend of mine who had devoted his career specializing in craniofacial surgery offered to mentor me to renew my training.

Following this I applied to Operation Smile to go on a mission trip. Recently my application was approved and I will be going to Lima, Peru for ten days in May to operate on children with these congenital deformities. It is certainly a dream come true and a win win scenario. Not only will I get to learn and operate but also I will get to help a child smile again. I urge you all to learn more about this organization that has been traveling all over the world for twenty-five years providing this wonderful service. Please visit their web site at Operationsmile.org.

Hopefully this will be just a first step on long adventure with blogs of the trip to come.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 30th, 2011 at 12:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.