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Home > About Us > Our HistoryOur HistoryOperation Smile Vietnam is part of a global alliance of Operation Smile Foundations and Resource Chapters dedicated to providing free treatment to children and adults suffering from cleft lips and cleft palates. Operation Smile’s first Medical Mission to Vietnam took place in 1989. John Connor, a Vietnam War Veteran and friend of co-founder, Dr. Bill Magee, initiated the first Medical Mission to Vietnam. Through the invitation of General John W. Vessey Jr., a 38-member volunteer Medical team traveled to Hanoi and treated 100 Vietnamese children suffering from childhood facial deformities. In 1991, a volunteer network of Vietnamese medical professionals established Operation Smile Vietnam. In January 2000, the first Operation Smile Vietnam Medical Mission took place at the Bac Lieu General Hospital in Bac Lieu province. The all- Vietnamese medical volunteer team provided life-changing surgeries to 85 children and young adults suffering from cleft lips and/or cleft palates. Since its first Medical Mission in 1989, Operation Smile has provided thousands of free medical procedures to children and young adults in Vietnam, and has provided additional training to Vietnamese medical professionals. Operation Smile Vietnam not only conducts cleft lip and cleft palate missions, but also dental, microsurgery and craionfacial missions, treating thousands of children each year. During the past 20 years, Operation Smile Vietnam has conducted medical missions to most cities in Vietnam including Hanoi, Hai Phong, Hue, Quang Binh, Thai Nguyen, Bac Thai, Quang Nam, Ninh Thuan, Can Tho, Ho Chi Minh City and Bao Loc. Operation Smile Vietnam medical volunteers have also participated in Operation Smile Medical Missions around the world. In March 2007, Operation Smile Vietnam opened its first Comprehensive Care Center in Hue in collaboration with the Hospital of Odonto-Stomatology of Hue and the Health Service Department of Thua Thein Hue. The center provides year-round comprehensive care by locally based teams of Operation Smile trained and credentialed medical professionals in the fields of plastic surgery, dentistry, pediatrics, and speech pathology and also provides psychosocial services to patients and their families. The Comprehensive Care Center will enable Operation Smile Vietnam to continue its craniofacial and mcrosurgery programs and provide education and training to medical professionals in Thua Thien Hue and neighboring provinces. This is the first of three centers planned for Vietnam; the others will be located in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. For more than six years Operation Smile Vietnam has held two annual fund-raising events, one in Hanoi and the other in Ho Chi Minh City. The gala dinner and auction, called, ‘An Evening of Smiles,’ has become one of the signature blank-tie evenings on Vietnam’s social calendar. Raising a phenomenal $700,000 USD to date, these funds have giving the gift of surgery to more than seven thousand Vietnamese children with facial deformities. For 20 years Operation Smile has been bringing hope to desperate Vietnamese children and their families, one smile at a time. |
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