FACE Programs to Serve Children

FACE Programs for Children in Jacksonville and North-Central Florida

Acting in concert with volunteers and medical colleagues in Florida, the FACE Team of doctors provides free reconstructive surgery for underprivileged children who suffer physically from a facial traumas or disfigurement as well as oral maxillofacial deformities.

The Garcia Institute has been helping underprivileged children on a case-by-case basis since our inception five years ago. In the course of their charity work in North Florida and abroad, the Drs. Garcia saw the need for a permanent specialized care resource for children who lack access to reconstructive plastic surgeons and dental specialists.

In 2005, the Drs. Garcia decided to enhance the value of this charity resource by establishing a non-profit foundation dedicated to building a team of doctors and medical professionals – here and abroad - to provide children in need with exceptional reconstructive surgical care that makes a decisive difference in their lives.

The Foundation for the Advancement of Children’s Esthetics [FACE] project provides:

Facial surgery and dental procedures for underprivileged children in North Florida at no cost to their families. These procedures are conducted at Wolfson Children’s Hospital-Jacksonville and the FACE surgical suites in Neptune Beach and Tampa Florida. Last year FACE doctors served 60 children in need of specialized care for facial deformities and traumas due to dog bites, auto accidents and other devastating injuries. Our goal for 2008 is to mobilize resources to double the number of children in North Florida who benefit from the live-changing reconstructive surgeries conducted by FACE doctors.

FACE Fellowship Training in advanced surgical techniques. FACE currently trains volunteer surgeons from the US and abroad in advanced facial surgery techniques benefiting affected children. This Fellowship program is now reaching out to surgeons from Rural Hospitals and Emergency Rooms in the Florida Panhandle, Central Florida and greater Jacksonville as a training resource. Participating surgeons help local children in an intensive fellowship-training program at the FACE center in Neptune Beach. Graduating surgeons will be able to improve the quality of care for each child suffering from facial trauma entering their facility.

This system will not only improve the quality of surgical care for children in North Florida, it will significantly expand the reach of FACE medical charity efforts to an exponentially larger number of children each year.　

Web-Based Open University for Surgeons in North-Central Florida. Surgeons at each participating rural hospital location in North Florida will be able to utilize FACE as a surgical resource for complicated child cases diagnosed at their location. Through the FACE Web-based communication network, these volunteer surgeons will be able to view ‘live’ real-time facial reconstruction procedures conducted by FACE doctors to help these children and to learn about specific surgical techniques. Cameras in the FACE operating room and internet audio/data links to rural hospitals will allow FACE doctors to be a guiding hand and continuing education resources for area surgeons on child facial surgery cases.

In addition to viewing ‘live’ FACE surgical cases, participating will be able to access a wide array of surgical cases and tutorials through the FACE Medical Forum Website and Library (see below). 　

FACE Web-based Medical Library. FACE team leaders have a vast array of surgical cases addressing various advanced techniques for review on video file which were taped during procedures conducted at our Institute. This library is continually expanded through the taping and filing of cases conducted by FACE doctors in Neptune Beach as well as fellowship graduates in the US and abroad. Surgeons in participating rural hospitals throughout North Florida will be able to download cases in the Library via File Transfer Protocol.

FACE Medical Forum Website. This site allows leading surgeons from all over the world provide guidance and advise on child facial reconstruction cases.

Our worldwide network of leading surgeons is available to hold Grand Rounds conferences and continuing education forums and exchange text and image medical data at any given time by utilizing the FACE website forum.

“Live” Surgical Monitoring and Supervision at Selected Florida Locations. In addition to the “Web-based Open University” outlined above allowing surgeons to see and learn from surgical procedures conducted at Neptune Beach, FACE is establishing an IT platform for our Surgical Outreach Centers abroad. This video-teleconferencing platform allows FACE doctors to provide “live” remote supervision and advice for surgeons operating on children in their branch facility.

FACE plans to utilize this web-based live surgical support program to assist surgeons at the Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville. For patients identified by both facilities as a uniquely complicated case that could benefit from this program, FACE doctors in Neptune Beach will provide ‘live’ supervision and monitoring for surgical procedures conducted on underprivileged children at Wolfson Children’s Hospital. This supervision and monitoriing resource will be available for pre-op screening/consultation, during surgery and for post-op recuperative care, as needed.

As with the “web-based Open University’ noted above, cameras in each operating field, monitors, video teleconferencing equipment and internet audio/data links will allow FACE doctors to be a guiding hand for Wolfson surgeons during their procedures..

The FACE Communications Center will allow FACE doctors to be available 12 hours per day to remotely monitor and advise surgeons on these ‘live’ procedures, as well as a 24-hour per day on-call surgeon for emergency facial trauma cases. .

A More Efficient and Effective Medical Charity Resource for North Florida

We recognize that the solution for expanding the scope and quality of care for children in need is to do more than send volunteer surgeons to various ER locations in North Florida or to transport every child in need to our main facility.

We need to use Web-based technology to empower local surgeons with immediate and reliable access to medical information and advice, advanced training and supervision through web-based technology. This ‘train-the-trainer’ and ‘remote monitoring’ model will allow the FACE team to extend our services throughout North Florida and to transform the lives of a greater number of children lacking any other option for facial reconstruction procedures.

The IT platform in our Neptune Beach headquarters Jacksonville will allow us to maximize our time and resources to provide a guiding hand to an army of local surgeons through both on-site training and web-based surgical support.