When not caring for plastic and cosmetic surgery patients in the St. Louis, St. Charles, Chesterfield, and Kansas City, Missouri, areas, Dr. Nayak feels fortunate to be able to volunteer his time and reconstructive expertise in areas where the need is greatest. His most recent trip was in March, 2010, to Hanoi, Vietnam.
Dr. Nayak and two other surgeons from the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery's "Face to Face" surgical mission program travelled to Hanoi and spent 9 days there caring for patients and teaching local surgeons plastic surgical techniques. While other members of the team performed cleft lip and palate surgery, as well as ear reconstruction, Dr. Nayak focused on his area of reconstructive expertise: rebuilding missing or damaged noses. Two particularly memorable patients had extensive nasal deformities: a seventy year old woman whose nose was destroyed by smallpox scarring 50 years ago, and a man in his forties who sustained a blast injury caused by a land mine left over from "the American War", as the Vietnam War is called in that country.
Using techniques he often uses in St. Louis to restore parts of the face lost to cancer, Dr. Nayak rebuilt these two patients, along with many others, using their own tissue - ear and rib cartilage, cheek and forehead skin, and more. These procedures were undertaken in one of the biggest hospitals in Vietnam - the National Otolaryngology Hospital - and this allowed for multiple local surgeons to come watch the surgery live as it was being performed, and also listen to evening lectures to further teach these reconstructive principles.
Through efforts such as these, the Face to Face program strives to not only serve a few patients during the mission, but also to raise the quality of facial plastic surgical care even after the mission is over.
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Click here to read
Thank you letter from
National ENT Hospital
of Vietnam |
