Operation Smile here for 20th anniversary

`Operation Smile International, the world’s largest humanitarian organization that provides free reconstructive surgery to indigent children with facial deformities, launches its 20th anniversary this year with a historic mission to the Philippines from Feb. 19 to March 1.

This year’s mission will go to four sites, including Naga City where the first mission was conducted in 1982, according to Rep. Edith Yotoko-Villanueva, president of Operation Smile Philippines Foundation, the local affiliate.

More than 90 international volunteers, including plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, dentists, nurses and speech therapists, will arrive from the United States in two batches starting today to join their Filipino counterparts who will conduct operations at the Bicol Medical Center in Naga City, Dr. Jose P. Rizal National Medical Research Center in Dasmariñas, Cavite, Vicente Sotto Memorial Hospital in Cebu City, and Brokenshire Memorial Hospital in Davao City.

The team leaders are Filipinos from the Philippine Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (PAPRAS): Dr. Juan Sanchez in Naga, Dr. Laurence Loh in Cavite, Dr. James Joaquino in Cebu, and Dr. Joselito Cembrano in Davao.

Operation Smile started in the Philippines with the first mission led by Dr. William Magee Jr., a plastic surgeon, and his nurse-wife, Kathleen Magee, in 1982.