Cleft Lip/Palate Repairs

[mosfet]

As a plastic surgeon just out of training, how comfortable are you in doing cleft lip and/or palate repairs without a special 1 year fellowship training in craniofacial. In other words, do you HAVE to do a craniofacial fellowship in order to be able to repair cleft lips/palates? I understand that for craniosynostosis and other extensive facial trauma reconstructions you would probably benefit from a craniofacial year of training.

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[droliver]

While doing a 1st stage cleft isn't rocket science, I personally feel that if you are not devoting a large part of your practice to pediatric plastic surgery then you should not be dabbling in it a couple of times a year. These patients benefit from long-term longitudinal care as part of an organized team approach in multi disciplinary clinic environments. There are few places in the country that are more then a few hours from tertiary centers that do high volumes of these cases.

 

[maxheadroom]

I agree with Dr. Oliver -- you should be part of a CLP team if you're doing these. Some residencies will give you enough volume to be very competent at CLP, others won't. I know one program where the residents do tons. At my program we did enough for me to feel comfortable with a "straight-forward" cleft, but a complex one would make me a bit nervous.

 

[Stare Decisis]

@ maxheadroom

Don't leave a wannabe craniofacial surgeon hanging, where do they do tons of CLP's. PM me if you like, but I beg you to tell me!!! Thanks in advance. I know plastic surgery is difficult enough but it is nice to dream.

-SD

 

[turundu]

@ maxheadroom

Don't leave a wannabe craniofacial surgeon hanging, where do they do tons of CLP's. PM me if you like, but I beg you to tell me!!! Thanks in advance. I know plastic surgery is difficult enough but it is nice to dream.

-SD

It will make two of us, do you mind posting the list of programs?

 

[Valadi]

Hey all, sorry to revive a dead thread, but I have a question on cleft lip/palate repair.

I'm a med student, but when I've dropped in for conference our Chair has mentioned on two occasions a 'classic work' on cleft lip/palate. The author's name began with an 'A' and I thought he said 'Avignon,' but a search returned no results, and I haven't been able to find anything on google, pubmed, or the references in Grabbe & Smith.

Any idea what this 'classic work' on cleft lip/palate is? I'm very interested in reading up on it.

Thanks for your help!