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The 12-year-old girl sat somberly in the medical facility,
anticipating the surgery that would transform both her
appearance and her life. Born with a bilateral cleft lip,
she had never known the joys of childhood that many take
for granted. In her native India, children with deformities
are ostracized and forbidden to attend school with their
peers.
Her destiny changed the day she met medical volunteers
from Operation Smile.
Cindi Raglin, RN, who works in the neonatal intensive
care unit at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters
in Norfolk, Va., is one of many nurse volunteers who
have traveled on medical missions with Operation Smile,
a private, nonprofit volunteer medical services organization
based in Norfolk, Va.
Through Operation Smile, nurses from across the world
spend two weeks working as part of a medical team to
provide free reconstructive surgery to children in India
and other developing countries. Medical volunteers provide
the surgery and supplies needed to repair cleft lips,
cleft palates, burns, tumors and other birth defects.
During an international mission, Operation Smile volunteers
can repair a cleft lip in as little as 45 minutes at
a cost of $750. Surgeries are funded through individual
and corporate donations and provided at no cost to families.
"It's remarkable to see the transformation after
these children undergo surgery," Raglin said. "The
girl in India who rarely smiled was beaming the day
after her operation."
Raglin is one of Operation Smile's most ardent supporters.
Not only has she traveled on nine missions with the
organization, she also volunteers 30 hours a week at
its headquarters, where she reviews volunteer applications
and assigns nurses to medical teams.
"When you go on a mission with Operation Smile,
it changes your life," Raglin said. "After
my first mission, I fell in love with the organization."
William Magee, DDS, MD, and his wife, Kathleen, MSW,
founded Operation Smile in 1982, after they traveled
to the Philippines. They were overwhelmed to find hundreds
of children who were ravaged by deformities and who
had no access to medical care. The Magees returned the
next year to help more than 200 children. With that
mission, Operation Smile was born.
Last year, Operation Smile volunteers offered reconstructive
surgery at 26 sites across the world, including Bolivia,
Brazil, Cambodia, China, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
In addition to providing free surgical services in developing
countries, Operation Smile provides education and training
around the world to physicians and other health care
professionals to achieve long-term self-sufficiency.
"You meet the most incredible families on these
missions," Raglin said. "One family in Colombia
had just lost their home and everything they owned in
a mudslide, but all they cared about was their child
having the chance to have their cleft palate corrected."
Terri Klimek, MS, CRNA, of the University of Michigan
Health System in Ann Arbor, clearly remembers the faces
that greeted her when she first arrived in Morocco on
an Operation Smile mission.
"There were hundreds of people waiting and hoping
their children would be selected for surgery,"
Klimek said. "Many come from miles away by mule,
by bus or on foot. When you have screened 300 to 600
patients and can operate on only 120 to 160, you understand
the Magees' dedication to helping these children."
Medical volunteers work in conditions that are far
different from the state-of-the-art medical centers
in the United States.
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