Barbara Powell helps Austin Smiles as it brings reconstructive surgery to people in developing countries.

Her next medical mission is scheduled for February

After walking alone through jungle and hilly terrain for several days, a teen-age girl found the Americans she was seeking at the military hospital in San Salvador. She had a request for them. Could they fix her cleft palate so that food wouldn’t pass through her nose when she ate?

They could.

Before she left to rejoin her family, the young girl became one of the thousands of people who have had their lives changed by Austin Smiles, a nonprofit group that provides free reconstructive surgery both locally and abroad to children and adults with cleft lips or palates. Austin Community College’s Barbara Powell, an associate professor in the college’s Surgical Technology Program, volunteers with the group and coordinates mission trips to Latin America.

“The patients and their families have shown us so much gratitude, and it’s always a humbling experience for us,” says Powell, who has undertaken 16 mission trips so far, even taking unpaid leave from a previous position to do so. Powell’s next trip is scheduled for February 2010.

“It fulfills me,” she says.

Powell joined the organization in 1994. “I was in a slump when somebody asked me to go on a mission. It changed my life when I realized how fortunate I was.”

Without the surgery, many of these people have been hidden and ostracized. “In the homes of these people, they don’t hang mirrors,” Powell says. “Once, we were given a mirror as a thank you present.”

Although Austin Smiles has gone to Cuba, Mexico, and Brazil, most of the trips have been to El Salvador, where the incidence of cleft lip and/or cleft palate is believed to be the highest in the world. In Texas, 1 in 700 babies is born with this type of problem; in El Salvador, it’s 1 in 300.

Powell says Austin Smiles has developed an efficient operation in El Salvador over the years. “We use the military hospital and the military brings patients to us, which is safer than us going into the jungle to find people ourselves,” she says.

Austin Smiles relies on hundreds of volunteers who rotate between trips. Among the volunteers are a number of ACC graduates. Jennifer Minton, a St. David’s Hospital surgical technician who studied under Powell, recently went on a mission to Veracruz.

“Hundreds of people, it almost seemed like thousands, walked to find us. They were nervous because they’re not used to being around Americans,” Minton says. “There were not a lot of smiles at the beginning, and afterwards there were tears from the families of those we could help. But they were tears of happiness.”

An operation to fix a cleft lip takes about two hours; cleft palate surgery about four hours. Four operating theaters are in use simultaneously, so between about 60 and 80 patients receive surgery during the weeklong trip – far fewer than the number of people seeking help.

“The last time we were there, 300 people showed up,” Powell says. “The hardest part is telling people we can’t treat them.”

“After the operation, the mother said that he wasn’t her baby and wouldn’t take him back,” Powell says. “We had to convince her that he was her baby.”

Results of cleft lip and palate surgeries are often so dramatic that patients, especially infants, are unrecognizable to family members. One such mother had been advised by a neighbor to let her baby die because of his deformities.

“After the operation, the mother said that he wasn’t her baby and wouldn’t take him back,” Powell says. “We had to convince her that he was her baby.”

Although most of the patients are infants, some people have lived decades with the deformities.

“One man in his 60s came in to have his lip repaired,” Powell says. “He was with his girlfriend, who’d been with him for many years. Right after his surgery, he proposed to her. He said that, until his lip was repaired, he didn’t think he was worthy of marrying her.”

Just as Powell encourages her students to participate in the missions, they often encourage others to do the same.

“This has become a passion of mine,” Minton says. “I’ve shared my experiences with my co-workers and urged them to be part of something bigger than themselves. About a dozen of them are planning to go on missions in the future.”