Correction of palatal defect facilitates easier speaking and eating for the patient. This video describes the procedure of closing cleft palate. ...

On April 23, Don Laub, MD, Maggie Mangham, RN, and other members of a team of health care professionals flew into Bhutan, a country in South Asia at the eastern end of the Himalayas, where they spent a week performing 57 surgeries. The trip was sponsored by Surgicorps International, which provides surgical and medical care to people around the world. Just getting to Bhutan from Burlington...

One of every 600 newborns is affected by cleft lip and cleft palate, making it the most common birth defect in the United States. Clefts occur very early in pregnancy due to a combination of genetics and environmental factors. Our upper lips are made from three parts, and the seams them fusing together are the “philtrum” – the vertical ridges in the middle of the...

In 1968, when I was 8 years old, my father, Donald Laub, Sr., a plastic surgeon and chief of the plastic surgery residency at Stanford University, founded Interplast, Inc.. Interplast was the first organization to bring free reconstructive surgery to the needy in third world countries. Since then, Interplast has provided thousands of people, young and old, with free reconstructive surgery and has branched off...