English was the language of instruction, but certainly not the only language being spoken in the fresh tissue lab at Duke when 30 doctors from Vietnam to Venezuela and 18 other countries gathered to learn how to give children back their smiles.
The occasion was the Operation Smile Flap Course held May 31 â€" June 2 and organized by Duke’s Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery division. Operation Smile is a medical charity that performs facial plastic surgery on children, usually with cleft lip or cleft palate, who couldn’t otherwise afford it.
“This class was an opportunity to provide training for physicians who are willing to work with Operation Smile, but who want to learn more about the techniques involved in repairing cleft palate or other facial deformities,” says Scott Levin, M.D., F.A.C.S., who has helped organize several Operation Smile courses at Duke. He is a professor of orthopaedic surgery and a professor of plastic surgery, and chief of the Division of Plastic Surgery.
The course participants heard lectures from various Duke physicians and had several opportunities to get hands-on learning with actual human tissue in the fresh tissue lab at Duke. Plastic surgery teaching faculty participating in the class included Michael Zenn, M.D., Jeffrey Marcus, M.D., Detlev Erdmann, M.D., Ph.D., and Yixin Zhang, M.D.
“It is wonderful that Duke has the expertise and resources to teach about how to repair common birth defects, and the desire to share this knowledge so widely,” said Michael Merson, M.D., director of the Duke Global Health Institute. “It is one of many ways Duke is reaching out to the world.”
