Local Plastic Surgeon Laura Sudarsky Donated Surgical Skills To 50 Needy Guatemalan Children

Local Plastic Surgeon Laura Sudarsky, Partner In eSSe Plastic Surgery,
Donated Surgical Skills To 50 Needy Guatemalan Children
–Volunteered in Medical Missions Program, Healing The Children, Florida,Inc.–

Fort Lauderdale, FL – December 3, 2014 – Board-certified plastic surgeon Laura A. Sudarsky has just returned from a week in Guatemala where she donated her surgical skills as part of the Medical Missions Program for Healing the Children Florida (HTC), a not-for-profit organization dedicated since 1982 to providing volunteer life altering healthcare to children in need in developing countries.

Dr. Sudarsky, the only female plastic surgeon who participated in the program, spent five days from November 15th to the 22nd in Guatemala, where much of the population lives in poverty. During her stay her team performed more than 50 reconstructive surgeries: procedures such as craniofacial conditions, e.g., cleft lip and palate, on children at Hospital Nacional De Amatitlan, a government facility founded in 1862. These birth defects can hamper babies during breast feeding and may result in ear infections and speech defects if untreated. Their cause is multifactorial. Other procedures included reconstructive burn, trauma and hand surgeries (e.g. syndactyly, where two or more digits are growing together). Many families cook outdoors, and the children suffer burns from the flames. Fabrics are often not flame retardant, and clothes catch on fire, causing serious burn contractures and scarring.

Dr Sudarsky has been travelling with HTC for 20 years, and has operated on more than 2500 children during her medical missions abroad. She has served as the Director of Plastic Surgery for HTC and as a Team Leader for many years.

“The satisfaction of returning a child back to their parents’ arms after a life altering surgery is indescribable,” states Sudarsky.

Many children with medical problems in developing nations live out their lives in a severely limited fashion or do not survive. HTC has provided first class medical care to more than 191,572 children in 100 plus countries, including the United States. Donated in-kind services provided by volunteers in 2013 totalled $960,375.00.

Fluent in English, French and Spanish, Dr Sudarsky has long been dedicated to “giving back” by working with underserved groups of women and children. She has been recognized by Operation Smile and Healing the Children for her multilingual clinics in impoverished countries, and she is the recipient of multiple humanitarian awards including a Certificate of Special Recognition from the United States Congress. Her travels with HTC have taken her as far as Afghanistan and Bangladesh where she worked with acid burn victims and Colombia during the height of guerilla warfare.

Dr. Sudarsky had been Chief of Plastic Surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital, New York. For many years she has been involved in research and innovation in the field in breast surgery. A pioneer in transumbilical breast augmentation (TUBA), she published a series in the Annals of Plastic Surgery. She taught the procedure to colleagues and continues to develop and refine new techniques. She has presented in national conferences and published in surgery journals. Trained in cosmetic/reconstructive breast surgery, she is also one of a small group of physicians to be board certified in wound care.

Dr. Sudarsky and Dr. Tracey H. Stokes recently announced the opening of eSSe, a joint practice focusing on aesthetic surgery of the face, breast and body, located at 6333 North Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308; (954) 533-1671. According to some estimates, only one in nine plastic surgeons in the U.S. are women, suggesting that male surgeons handle the vast majority of cosmetic procedures.