Working Miracles with Plastic Surgery
After extensive—and pro-bono—reconstructive surgeries, a seventeen-year-old girl is on her way to recovery from third-degree burns to her chest and torso.
Ghadeer Faisal Ebrahim Al Titi was three years old when she slipped in her kitchen and knocked a pan of boiling oil onto herself—an accident that scalded her chest and torso almost beyond recognition. Since then she has been in and out of hospitals for procedure after procedure, including two or three skin graft surgeries—but because the scarring on her chest was so deep, even those weren’t adequate to fully address the damage that had been done.
Now, fifteen years later, it appears that the young woman is nearing the end of her long journey toward healing. Recently, Belgian plastic surgeon Carole Azzam, along with anesthetologists Been Gouba and Piet Bekaert, all offered their services to reconstruct Al Titi’s chest and torso at the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery in the Dubai Health Care City . . . free of charge.
The seventeen-year-old girl will need one more surgery a year from now to put in tissue expanders and finish reconstruction of part of her stomach, but for now, all that’s left to her is to heal—and so far she’s doing great!
It’s inspiring to see doctors in my field donate their time and expertise to help patients like this one attain a better quality of life; and the more advanced our technology becomes, the more opportunity we have to make small miracles with plastic surgery like this one happen. It’s an exciting time to be a plastic surgeon!
Until next time, Dr. Usha Rajagopal