Southern California Chapter

Launch of "Academy of Hope"

Operation Smile provides health care professionals with intensive education and training during medical education conferences. The annual Physicians’ Training Program (PTP) brings surgeons and health care professionals from Operation Smile’s mission countries to Norfolk, Va., for two weeks of clinical and leadership
training. Since 1992, more 250 health care professionals from around the world have attended PTP.

Annual Medical Mission Training Conferences provide new Operation Smile medical volunteers with the skills and knowledge needed to work and teach in developing countries during OpSmile missions.

Educational Conferences

Operation Smile provides in-country partners with educational symposiums and mentored training, as well as supplies and equipment during medical missions.  During the 1997-98 mission schedule, Operation Smile volunteers provided education and training to an average of 70 health care professionals and completed an average of 4,860 man hours of education per mission.

Interdisciplinary Manual and CD-ROM

Created in order to capture the lessons learned and the extraordinary expertise acquired over the past sixteen years by Operation Smile's volunteers.  It is a product of the innumerable hours of service dedicated to giving children the gift of a new smile.  These thousands of new smiles add up to a wealth of knowledge and skill, which is important to document and to share.

Donation of one operating room per site

• North American Drager Free Standing Anesthesia Machine
• (NarcoMed 2A or 3)
• Datascope Passport O.R. Patient Monitor
• Ohmeda portable Vaporizer
• Oxygen Regulator
• Datascope Accutorr R.R. Patient Monitor
• Leibinger Cleft Lip/Palate Instrument set
• Keller Portable Suction Machines (2)
• Valley Lab Force 2 Electrosurgical unit (bovie machine)

Development of one educational multimedia classroom per country

• State-of-the-art computer and two digital cameras
• TV/VCR for each site
• Access to the Internet
• Interdisciplinary Manual/CD-ROM
• Donation of Plastic Surgery Medical Volumes

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Our web site is continually updated with new information.  Please check back soon for the latest news articles, missions and events.

Send mail to OperationSmileLA@surgery.usc.edu with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: December 08, 1999