Our first patient

Originally uploaded by interplast

Phan Rang, Vietnam-Kathy Yates, Interplast board member.

This 2-year-old girl will be our first surgery tomorrow. She suffers from a pronounced bilateral cleft palate and lip. She is very small for her age—a condition that is very common in cleft palate patients because of the difficulty they have in sucking and gaining nutrition. We saw several adolescent patients today who had repairs made to their cleft lips, but their palates were not fully repaired. Due to their age their speech has been affected by their cleft palates. This little girl is however is lucky; her age will enable her to develop her speech properly after her operation. She’s protesting now, but when she is older she will be very thankful that her parents brought her to our clinic today.