PCMS_Philadelphia_Medicine_Summer2017 - 17

p h i l a m e d s o c  .o rg

PENN'S CENTER FOR HUMAN APPEARANCE

The Edwin and Fannie Gray Hall Center for Human Appearance's
mission statement calls for "research and education to assist children
and adults to achieve the most ideal normal appearance through
medical, surgical and psychological measures." The center also partially
funds treatment programs in Eastern Europe, Mexico and Africa.
"Appearance is fundamental and key to our interactions with
others," Dr. Whitaker said. "To appear normal, and to improve on
what we think of as a normal appearance is a basic human desire."
He said the interdisciplinary nature of the center is designed
to bring about a patient's healing of both body and mind. "CHA
physicians advance ideas with each other through phone calls and
meetings about joint approaches, sometimes, in the operating room
working on a shared case, and during regular clinical conferences.
The conferences produce a lively exchange of ideas. The center is a
place of synergy and intellectual stimulation."

"The initial idea involved the artist, Nelson Shanks, who was a very
close friend of mine," Dr. Whitaker said. He brought the idea to
Shanks, after learning of a similar program in England that focused
on adults with deformities caused by trauma.
The center would probably not exist if Dr. Whitaker had stayed
on his initial path in medicine. "I wanted to be a surgeon for as
long as I can remember, but my first interest was neurosurgery. I
was fascinated with the brain. After my internship, I was drafted
and served at a large military hospital in Germany. There, I found
that successes in neurosurgery were often defined by a patient being
paralyzed on only one side of his body, instead of both sides. For me,
there were a lot of bleak moments in neurosurgery.
"I'd always been interested in art. I studied it, and did some painting
before my work as a surgeon left me little time for it. When I came
back to the U.S. to do my residency, I began seeing plastic surgery as
a good fit. It combined the world of art with the artistry of surgery.
It was a natural for me."

Along with being the founder of the Center for Human Appearance,
Dr. Whitaker continues in his role as director. He has recruited
specialists whose patients have appearance problems in addition
Dr. Whitaker says the art of plastic surgery is often what attracts
to medical and functional problems. The specialists also have had people to the field. "Much of plastic surgery is about appearance.
to demonstrate a willingness to accept the give-and-take world of There's never just one way - say you have a child with a deformity -
teamwork. The team he has assembled has allowed Dr. Whitaker to it's never just go in and fix something and you're done with it. Every
expand his efforts to help children and adults recover from excruciating patient is quite different, even though they may have some similarities."
facial injuries and deformities.
He mounts a strong defense for the cosmetic surgeon, which has
"These deformities from birth defects, tumors and injuries are been criticized in some quarters for dealing with the superficialities
devastating for families," he said. "A lot of families end up adjusting of appearance, and taking advantage of the vanities of some patients.
pretty well, but it's an issue that just never goes away. The face is so
visible to the world."
Dr. Whitaker did a lot of cosmetic surgery before stepping out
of the operating room for good, in 2011. He argues that cosmetic
CHA offers an intense program of physical and psychological surgery offers a great deal to the patient and the surgeon. "If you
healing. "Many children are seen by a psychologist. Some children take the broad spectrum of plastic surgery, and break it into the
manage the deformity well and are not followed by a psychologist four things I've been talking about - birth defects, post-trauma,
for indefinite periods of time. Others are followed for long periods post-cancer and cosmetic - it's all a spectrum.
of time. The family also often needs ongoing counseling."
"For surgeons who do only the cosmetic end of the spectrum,
Dr. Whitaker says the Center for Human Appearance has worked there's nothing wrong with that," he said. "It gets too much hype
remarkably well because it has been able to get gifted physicians to and bad publicity.
work together, who if they were in the medical world outside the
center, would most likely be competing with each other. He says
"For a good part of my career, I divided my work pretty evenly
the funding from the Edwin Hall II Foundation has played a crucial between adult and children's surgery. The work with kids centered
role. "If you get the money every year and it's a substantial amount entirely around major birth defects. I felt that having the knowledge
that enables you to do research in your specialty, it's the glue that's and experience with cosmetic surgery made me more able to give
a very strong inducement to stay."
a better result with the birth defects. It helped me make the result
look a little better, more normal. The goal is always normalcy in
One of the projects funded by the foundation is the Craniofacial birth defects. That's your end point.
Program Portrait Project, which Philadelphia Medicine highlighted
in its last issue. The program is an effort to help children's emotional
"With cosmetic surgery - say someone has a sagging face that's
recovery from plastic surgery, by getting their portraits painted by really bothering them. The facelift is really getting back to an earlier
Philadelphia's Studio Incamminati artists.
normalcy, although it may be better than normal for that age group." *
Summer 2017 : Philadelphia Medicine 17


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