ROTARIAN SURGEONS UNITE:
INITIATING CHILDREN’S DEFORMITY HOSPITAL
Surgeons
and Dentists from the United States joined forces with those located in
Baja California on March 9-10, 2007 to “ initiate and cut the ribbon”
on the first children’s facial- deformity surgical clinic performing
complex surgical procedures under general anesthesia with the Mexican
town of Tecate’s state-of-art facility built specifically for the
Centennial Anniversary of Rotary.
Dr. Jeff Moses,
retired Carlsbad Maxillofacial Surgeon, Rotarian, and Founder of the
Smiles International Foundation along with his wife, Maribel worked
closely with Rotarians, doctors and local officials from both sides of
the border during the previous year to locate patients and arrange
supplies and provide the clinic with critical organizational logistics.
“Without the full support and involvement of the wonderful Rotarians
and doctors in the Clubs from California, Oklahoma, and Mexico, this
would not have been possible” said Moses. “Many seemingly
insurmountable hurdles were transformed into small bumps in the road
through their efforts.”
The first screening clinic
ran in early November of 2006 and the preparations were made for the
tri-annually held surgical-dental treatment clinics to begin in March
of 2007. Out of the first dozen patients screened and treated, there
were four selected for general anesthesia and, in order to benefit the
children most, 2-4 surgeries for each child was performed at the same
setting ending the Saturday Surgical Day with a total of 12 facial
cleft surgical procedures.
The operating team
surgeon, Dr. Kevin Smith, also a Rotarian, was accompanied by his
co-team leader, Dr. B.J. Costello and their colleagues Drs. Shawne
Higashi and Matthew Dudziak from Oklahoma and Pennsylvania respectively.
Drs.
Marcos Ramirez, Elizabeth Salinas and Yolanda Villa-Torres from Mexico,
worked side-by side with the surgical-dental dental team with Drs. Gary
Godward and Bob Fleming providing much-needed dental treatments for the
children. Dr. Ramirez also headed the follow-up clinic for the operated
children assuring a successful continuity of treatment care.
The official name for this project is “Smiles of Tecate” or more appropriately in Spanish:
“Sonrisas de Tecate”
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In the USA and Mexico, one in every 650 births has a cleft deformity.
While worldwide numbers differ according to regional ethnicity, several
environ-mental factors such as exposure of the mother to harmful
substances and mal-nutrition have been implicated to in-crease this
number. While the reasons for infant clefting are multifactoral,
clearly genetic heredity plays the most important role. Usually the
cleft lip is closed at age 10 weeks and the palate at approximately one
year. Other staged corrections in-clude ear tubes, nasal correction,
bone grafts, and maxillofacial dental pros-thetics. If done at the
appropriate times throughout development, favorable outcomes are
possible with es-thetics and func-tional speech, hearing, and the
ability to eat. In less fortunate regions of the world, socio-economic
conditions can lead to a delay of these treatments for the child, if
corrected at all. This produces children developing with severe
deformities more difficult to correct later in life and social out
casting of the child.
