{"id":4264,"date":"2014-05-09T05:34:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-08T19:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=4264"},"modified":"2015-04-29T11:51:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T01:51:36","slug":"surgeons-visit-to-literally-put-smiles-on-kids-faces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/surgeons-visit-to-literally-put-smiles-on-kids-faces\/","title":{"rendered":"Surgeon\u2019s visit to literally put smiles on kids\u2019 faces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr David Chong is expecting to see big smiles on children\u2019s faces when he leaves Lima, Peru, to return to Australia after a two-week mission to carry out reconstructive surgery on young people born with facial deformities.<\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/a>
Dr David Chong with RCH patient, Sophie – one of David’s many patients to receive life-changing surgery. Photo courtesy of Herald Sun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David will be visiting Peru as part of Operation Smile<\/a>, a private, not-for-profit organisation that offers free surgery to children and young adults in developing countries who have been born with conditions including cleft lip and cleft palate. A Consultant Plastic Surgeon at The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital, David has spent his annual leave volunteering in developing countries with Operation Smile two or three times a year for the past seven years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first two to three days are screening, we see all the kids, then there are five or six days of operations and one to two days of training,\u201d David says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so rewarding. I\u2019m very, very fortunate to be able to do something that can have such a profound impact on a child\u2019s life in a 90 minute operation. It\u2019s something I\u2019m very proud to be affiliated with. I miss it if I don\u2019t do it at least two or three times a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as performing the life-changing surgery, David says up skilling locals, where feasible, is a key part of the project, with the aim being to ensure locals will continue to be able to access surgeons trained in performing the procedures after the Operation Smile team has gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not possible in all countries, but there are countries like the Philippines where we used to send volunteers years ago, and now they are sending volunteers to other countries in their own right,\u201d David says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started, the volunteers were mainly Americans and Canadians, now there are people from everywhere; African countries, Asian countries. It\u2019s like a global family that\u2019s continuing to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Globally, a child is born with a cleft lip or palate every three minutes with 10 per cent of these children dying before their first birthday.<\/p>\n

David leaves for Peru on Saturday 10 May and will return to Australia on June 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RCH Plastic Surgeon Dr David Chong heads to Peru with Operation Smile to perform life-changing reconstructive surgery on young people and children born with facial deformities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":4289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4264"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4291,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions\/4291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}