Mission: Accomplished A Long Island orthodontist gives impoverished children a reason to smile.

by Liz Wallenstein

Propped up against a mirror in Dr. Leon Klempner's Long Island office is a plaque that reads, "A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was or the kind of car I drove... but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child." The quote couldn't describe the Suffolk County orthodontist's life philosophy any better. In fact, Klempner's entire practice is testimony to his dedication to children. "Dr. Leon" is the unique kind of dentist that put braces on a 13-year-old multiply handicapped young man one at a time over a series of months, because the boy couldn't sit still in the chair for more then 10 seconds. Two other dentists had already given up on him. Klempner is the unique kind of dentist that treats 300 of his closest friends-- his patients and staff members and their families-- to a Mets or Yankees game every year. But perhaps the most outstanding testimony of the orthodontist's kindness and devotion to children is his involvement with Operation Smile, an organization that brings reconstructive facial surgery to impoverished children worldwide. Klempner, a native of Queens who now lives and works in Suffolk County with offices in Medford and Port Jefferson, has gone on six missions with Operation Smile, as well as donates money and raises funds and awareness for the cause. Founded in 1982, Operation Smile is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing free reconstructive surgery and related health care to indigent children, as well as training to medical personnel from third world nations to assist in achieving self-sufficiency. Volunteers donate their time and skills to repair the faces of children disfigured and stigmatized by cleft lips and palates, tumors, burns, and other birth defects. It has changed the lives of tens of thousands of people in 20 countries, with more than 5,000 volunteers. A mission team consisting of about 40 professionals spend two weeks in a host country, squeezing in dozens of patients during 14-hour shifts. "Babies with these problems have a hard time feeding and gaining weight because the food comes up through the nose," explained Klempner. "Speech is almost impossible. So as these kids get older, nobody can understand them but their parents." "The medical part is one thing, but the social part is what's devastating," he continues. "People stop, stare, parents are embarrassed; children are ostracized, not only from the community but sometimes from their own families. In some Third World countries, they view a deformity as the devil's work or something the family did to deserve this. So not only is the child affected, the family is affected. As a result, the child is often times locked up at home or hidden away. They only come out at night, wearing hats or collars to cover their faces. They have no education, no way to make a living, no self-esteem, no social life." Liz Wallenstein is an assistant editor.

Dr. Klempner tells of his volunteer mission to Ecuador:

We arrived in Guyaquil, Ecuador on a Wednesday evening. The next morning we had a team breakfast meeting at 6am followed by a three hour bus ride to Machala, our mission site. This was the first opportunity to see the countryside. The area is as you would envision a poor third world country to appear. Sanitary conditions are poor and few houses have running water. Half-clothed children play in the muddy water (malaria and typhoid are rampant). When we got to our screening site on the Dole banana plantation, there were hundreds and hundreds of mothers and fathers holding babies and young children with various deformities. Many families had traveled for hundreds of miles and had waited for days for us to come. We set up folding tables and a multidisciplinary assembly line screening system was formed. First, medical charting, then plastics, pediatrics, anesthesiology, dental, and speech. One by one, each discipline examined the patient, prioritized the severity and noted its findings. Local translators were available to help with communication. We knew that there were too many children requiring care and that not all could be treated. During the next two days I examined over 200 children. Of those, 120 were scheduled for surgery. The next day, four of us (myself included) were asked to present a lecture at the military hospital.

As soon as we got to the hospital I spent most of my time running back and forth between the five operating rooms and my "dental office," a closet next to the OR. Our plans got complicated when we ran out of water or the electricity shut off. Fortunately, I had a volunteer oral surgeon from Quito, a dentist from Guayaquil and a local orthodontic lab technician to help me. Communication with my dental team was not an easy task but we managed.

By the end of the week we had completed 151 facial reconstructive surgeries. I had extracted a few hundred infected teeth and delivered many feeding appliances.

Time seemed to fly by. The camaraderie that developed between everyone on the team was great. For me, it was an adventure filled with emotion. One night after finishing for the day and setting up for the next, I went down to the post operative area to see how the children were doing. I sat down next to a patient's father as he watched his daughter sleep. I had a translator with me and asked him what he did for a living. He told me that he worked on the plantations and had been saving his money in the bank so that his daughter would have a better life. Then he told me that the government had just taken control of all assets in the banks in order to help the economy. I asked him how he could go on knowing that his savings were gone. He looked up at me and pointed to his daughter who was awakening with her new smile and said "this is all that matters to me." I learned a lot that night.

On the one hand I feel great about the contribution we made to the lives of the children we treated. On the other hand there is a sense of guilt. Guilt about what we have and take for granted here in the United States as compared to what they have there. Guilt about not being able to treat all the children that need care. It is said that whenever you volunteer for a worthwhile organization, you get more than you give. For me it's true. I'll never forget the grateful smiles of both parents and children for everything that we had done.

Dr. Leon Klempner is an orthodontist with private offices in Port Jefferson and Medford, Long Island, New York. He has been on six international missions with Operation Smile.

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The following is a reprint from a national orthodontic magazine. The editor has highlighted Dr. Klempner on the front cover and features an in-depth interview with him on the topic of utilization of new technology in his practice. Dr. Klempner is recognized as a leader in using state of the technology to serve his patients.

Ortho Products article

THE VILLAGE TIMES HERALD, April 8, 2004 By Brian R. Haines

LOCAL ORTHODONTIST HELPS BRING SMILES TO THE WORLD

Operation Smile provides reconstructive facial surgery for children in other lands. For Dr. Leon Klempner, creating great smiles goes beyond the braces and retainers he commonly provides for patients in his orthodontics practice in his Medford and Port Jefferson offices. He belongs to an elite group of volunteers who bring smiles to the underserved around the world. Dr. Klempner's journey with Operation Smile began in 1997 when he read an article about the group in a medical journal and immediately wrote them a letter. Operation Smile is a private, not-for profit volunteer medical service organization that travels the world to perform reconstructive surgery and related health care for indigent children and young adults. Before he knew it he was on a plane on his first mission in Ecuador with a team of 40 international medical volunteers, including plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, nurses, speech pathologists and others. His most recent mission took him to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, his third trip to the country and his seventh mission since he began volunteering with Operation Smile. Since the organizations first mission to Honduras in 1997, it has treated 858 children and young adults. Other missions for Dr. Klempner have included three trips to Machala, Ecuador and a mission to Lanzhou, China in 2002. I have always been involved with some aspect of helping other people, said Dr. Klempner, who has practiced orthodontics for the past 26 years. In addition to his missions with Operation Smile, he has worked as a volunteer response counselor on a suicide hotline and has spoken at elementary schools, where he tells students that in the lottery of life they are winners because they were born in the United States. According to Dr. Klempner, citizens of the United States are fortunate because deformities such as cleft palates are corrected before the baby ever leaves the hospital; in many of the countries he visits, women are fortunate if they give birth with a doctor present, let alone in a hospital. I enjoy helping the kids and probably as significant would be the personal benefits I get when I come back. Dr. Klempner said that when he returns home he feels centered and appreciative of his position: He loves his job and in doing it is able to give something back to the world. He said he is also lucky that many of the families he treats here at home help raise money so he can go on the Operation Smile missions. The Operation Smile mission begins with gathering all the supplies that will be needed in the field, everything from battery backup lights to rubber gloves and anesthetic. Dr. Klempner said it is not uncommon to go to an area where the hospital they are working in doesnt have running water, let alone the proper medical supplies for surgery. Operation Smile will normally spend about 10 days in one area in an effort to help as many children as possible, providing reconstructive facial surgery for children who suffer from congenital deformities such as cleft lips and cleft palates. The team begins with an extensive screening process in which patients are ranked by order of severity. Children who are not good candidates for surgery are fitted with prosthetic appliances when possible. Dr. Klempner uses his creative skills working with a light-curing machine brought from the United States to fashion artificial palates that function to separate the oral cavity from the nasal cavity, enabling many children to eat, drink and speak normally.

Village Times article

Dr. Klempner said that unfortunately the Operation Smile volunteers couldn't help every patient who comes to them. On his most recent trip, team members evaluated over 200 patients and were able to perform 140 surgeries. Many of the patients and their families travel from great distances, some even walking for days, to come to the makeshift clinic, where they may wait for days to be seen. "The worst part of the mission is posting the list of those patients we can treat and those we can't," said Dr. Klempner. "If you can correct a cleft palate before 18 months when they are starting to speak, then they can speak normally." Once a patient learns to speak with a cleft palate, he added, it is difficult for him or her to speak normally after surgery without a lot of speech therapy. According to Dr. Klempner, birth defects such as cleft palates, which make up about 95 percent of the needs the group addresses, have a dual effect of damaging both the child's physical health and social wellbeing. Many of these facial deformities prevent children from attending school or even leaving their homes because of the stigma attached to them. While the volunteers can't help all the patients who come, they try to help as many as they can. Dr. Klempner recalls one particularly weak 10-month-old baby who could not eat because of the severity of her deformity. Her low weight and poor health eliminated her as a candidate for surgery, but Dr. Klempner was able to construct an artificial palate that enabled the baby to feed normally. It was a difficult task because he didn't have a small enough tray to take an impression of her mouth in order to mold the artificial palate, but he used his creativity to adapt a plastic soup spoon into a tray in order to help the infant. On his recent trip to Honduras, Dr. Klempner said he worked with local physicians, dentists and nurses to educate them about congenital facial deformities and the basics of dental health. Operation Smile provides education and training around the world to local physicians and other health professionals to enable them to achieve long-term self-sufficiency. "The teaching is a big part of why I go," Dr. Klempner said, adding that in countries like Panama, the educational aspect of the mission has paid off - the country has created its own mission team to help its people. Until health professionals in the countries they visit are able to offer the services currently provided by Operation Smile teams, "We know we're not solving the problem - we're just helping kids," he said. Dr. Klempner is a diplomat of the American Board of Orthodontics and a faculty member at both Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and Stony Brook University Dental School. Recently he joined the Cleft Palate Team at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. He has lectured internationally on the topic of early preventive orthodontic techniques.

To find out more about Operation Smile or to make a donation, log onto www.operationsmile.org or call (757) 321-7645.

Journal of Clinical Orthodontics

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