Twice a year, Dr. Andrew Jacono trades his Park Avenue operating room for makeshift surgical suites in countries where reconstructive care for children is often out of reach. The dual board-certified facial plastic surgeon has provided surgical treatment to more than 750 children across developing regions, working through organizations including Healing the Children, the HUGS Foundation and THAI Children.
Destinations Where Care Is Scarce
His missions have taken him to Colombia, Ecuador, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries where families lack access to surgeons trained in complex facial reconstruction. Many of the children he treats were born with cleft lip and palate, microtia, facial tumors or burn scars, conditions that can be corrected with the right expertise but are frequently left untreated for years in communities without specialized care. Dr. Andrew Jacono typically brings fellow surgeons along on these trips, and family members have joined him as well, turning what could be a solitary effort into a coordinated one.
More Than a Medical Fix
The conditions treated on these missions carry consequences beyond appearance. A cleft lip can keep a child out of school or away from community activities long before it becomes a medical priority for a family without insurance or savings. Surgery addresses functional concerns like eating and breathing, but it also removes a barrier that has nothing to do with physical health and everything to do with how a child is treated by peers and neighbors. That dual purpose, functional and social, runs through every mission Dr. Andrew Jacono has undertaken abroad.
The work has continued for years without major publicity, built through repeat partnerships with the same humanitarian organizations rather than one-off appearances. Combined with his domestic reconstructive work for survivors of violence, his international missions form one half of a career built on the premise that surgical training obligates its holder to treat patients who could never otherwise afford it, regardless of where in the world they happen to live. See related link for more information.
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