Dr. Wieslawa de Pawlikowski, who led Operation Smile’s Women in Medicine mission to Lima, Peru in June.
Behind the Scenes
Dr. Wieslawa De Pawlikowski, Operation SmileQ&A
Dr. Wieslawa De Pawlikowski: To be the director of Operación Sonrisa Perú means leading the volunteers so we can provide comprehensive treatment to our patients. We are a group of specialists from different fields of healthcare—surgeons, pediatricians, anesthesiologists....We all want to achieve the same goal, which is to provide healthcare and a better well-being to children with cleft lip and cleft palate. We want them to live a life without any kind of limitations.
Dr. Wieslawa de Pawlikowski with a patient and the patient's parents
That’s why we volunteer. What we’re doing in assembling all these different medical disciplines is so, in uniform way, we can give these children a future. Children should have a future that is unrestricted.
Lima Clinical Coordinator Karla Robles with a patient
Q: What kind of care do the children receive from these different disciplines?
W: Comprehensive care is the dream that all of us volunteering at Operación Sonrisa Perú share. It’s a dream that is crystalizing now, after 20 years because we’re finally able to provide our patients with the treatment they deserve. These children need so much more than just surgical treatment. They also need nutritional treatment, psychological treatment, speech therapy, orthodontics...
Giselle, an Operación Sonrisa Perú patient
W: This mission has just shown me what I already knew, which is that women in the field of medicine are incredible. We have dedication to our patients. We also have compassion, tenderness and warmth. That makes a huge difference to these children.
The all-female volunteer team at Operación Sonrisa Perú
W: Yes! Valery is a beautiful baby girl who needed her lip to be repaired, as she had a very wide cleft. We performed corrective surgery so that it would appear as if she never had had a birth defect—so she would be no different than her classmates, and so she would not feel different. I’m so happy with how everything turned out.
