Getting educated in making smiles

To some teenagers, $240 may be the cost of a new back-to-school wardrobe.

But to Lauren Budorick, 17, a senior at First Colonial High, that sum means something else entirely.

“It only costs $240 to change someone’s life completely,” Budorick said, referring to the cost of surgically fixing a child’s cleft palate or cleft lip.

Since her freshman year, Budorick has been involved in the school’s Operation Smile Student Association.

Besides learning about the medical issues facing children with facial deformities, Budorick knows the impact the organization can make first-hand.

In March, her family hosted Edelawit, a shy 15-yearold from Southern Ethiopia who had a cleft lip.

“It was heartbreaking to see her with her cleft lip,” she said. “But it was heartwarming to see her change after the surgery. You could just tell she felt a lot better about herself.”

This fall, Budorick will get the chance to improve lives again, when she is part of an overseas Operation Smile medical mission.

“I’m going to Egypt in October, and then I’ll really be able to see face-to-face what a difference that $240 is making,” she said.

Earlier this month, Budorick was one of four Hampton Roads students who attended Operation Smile Mission Training in San Diego.

There, the area teens learned about things like burn care and prevention, dental hygiene and nutrition.

“It prepares them overall, for the mission they will go on,” said Lisa Jones, spokesperson for the Norfolk-based Operation Smile.

Now, these students will share what they learned with the parents and children they meet on their missions. Each mission team is comprised of two high school students and a student sponsor who is a chaperone during the trip.

“On the mission, the student team will give basic presentations to the parents and the children at the mission site at the hospital,” Jones said. “They will also travel to local orphanages and schools.”

Already, Madison Stein, 17, a senior at Norfolk Academy, has begun preparing for her trip. In February, the Bay Colony student is headed to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, for her two-week mission.

Stein has started preparing her presentation on oral re-hydration therapy. Learning how to re-hydrate children who have been sickened by local water made Stein feel especially empowered.

“All of the lectures were really interesting because I knew they would help people,” Stein said. But learning about a simple solution – a mix of a cup of water, a spoonful of sugar and a pinch of salt – proved especially interesting.

“That really surprised me – that a simple solution you could make at home, cures dehydration,” Stein said. During their trips abroad, students will go into the operating room. There, they can see the surgeries for themselves.

The opportunity can be a life-changing one.

It was in the case of Dr. Richard Rosenblum, a Great Neck resident and former Norfolk Academy graduate.

Although the school didn’t start its Operation Smile student association until 1986, Norfolk Academy was the first Operation Smile student association in the country. Rosenblum went on Operation Smile’s first medical mission. It was a trip to Naga City, Philippines, in 1982.

“My dad was the dentist who did all the pediatric dental work with Operation Smile,” Rosenblum said. “So he took me when I was a junior at Norfolk Academy. He actually took me and had me assisting him in all these surgeries as a 16-year-old in the OR.”

“It had a profound effect,” he added. “To change a child’s life in an hour and 45 minutes, to give them the power to smile back, I liked the immediacy of the result.”

Rosenblum had been considering a career in teaching before his trip, but changed his mind soon afterward.

Now, he is a pediatric plastic surgeon with a total of eight Operation Smile missions under his belt. And he has gone into practice with Dr. William P. Magee, the Virginia Beach plastic surgeon who founded Operation Smile.

From their Great Neck practice, the duo fill their days repairing children’s cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities.

There have been countless stories such as Rosenblum’s during the past 22 years, said Pat Hume, sponsor of Norfolk Academy’s Operation Smile student association.

“They come back completely different children,” Hume said. “It’s an experience that’s very difficult to put into words.”

Alexis Hionis, 17, is another member of Norfolk Academy’s Operation Smile student association.

The Witchduck teen heads to India in February for her medical mission. She knows the experience can be powerful because her sister also went on a medical mission, in 2005 to Peru.

Hionis has wanted to go on a medical mission ever since. Whether or not a medical career is for her, she said, is something she will determine after the trip.

Brooke Hogan, 17, said she doesn’t want to go into medicine, but she would like to join the ranks of Operation Smile one day. Currently, the Chesapeake resident is on her medical mission in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“Since ninth grade, I’ve always wanted to go on a mission,” said Hogan, also a Norfolk Academy student. “If I’m out there in Brazil and working with kids, and bringing them back from surgery and seeing their parents’ faces – you can see the result of a change you’ve made. A changed life.”

The Norfolk Academy Opeation Smile student association had 114 students two years ago, and 121 students last year. And it continues to grow, Hume said.

In addition to the mission training, Norfolk Academy also took 34 students to Operation Smile’s International Student Leadership Conference earlier this month.

Rosenblum said all the training, regardless of whether students pursue medical careers or not, serves students well later in life.

“I think it’s important to realize philanthropy is not just something you get,” Rosenblum said. “It’s something that has to be learned and Operation Smile is a great teacher of that.”