[Faline]

A 27 year old woman arrives in operating room 3 and Dr. Sibrand Schepel examines her cleft lip and nasal deformity realizing that she has no cartilage in her nose. "This will be a difficult case," he says as he contemplates how to go about rebuilding her nose. He decides to take cartilage from her ear to sculpt a septum and nose tip. As the case proceeds, his audience grows. A plastic surgeon, medical students and nursing staff from our host hospital as well as our Rotaplast speech pathologist and university student gather around to see the 35 year veteran surgeon at work.

Dr. Schepel is an artist and a perfectionist when he operates. He constantly checks and rechecks his work, making small adjustments and refinements to ensure that Oliveira will have the best outcome.

He takes cartilage from behind her right ear in such a way that the resulting scar will not be visible. Once the cartilage is removed, he forms it into a septum, using a special press to make it just the right thickness. It's then inserted into the nose and he reshapes the nostrils and nose tip using sutures. The lip is closed to finish off the proecedure.

Oliveira leaves the operating room, a beautiful Brazilian woman with a new nose and new smile.

[rheedork]

That's one big nose..

[coverdale0]

He could have made it smaller!!!

[gatagato]

Oliveira leaves the operating room, a beautiful Brazilian woman* with a new nose** and new smile***.

* maybe not exactly beautiful
** eh, but WHAT a nose!
*** what a wonderful smile she has ♥♥♥♥♥

[Airbornemama]

You know it's NOT gonna matter to her how big her nose is, because for the FIRST time in her life she HAS a nose and A smile to go with it! I applaud the Dr. who helped change this Woman's life for the better!!

[Karma]

Am I missing something...I don't see a smile in those pics. I am sure the swelling on her hooter will go down and now she will be able to smile, but I definitely don't see a smile anywhere now.

[KKSki]

hope the swelling goes down. Horray for her to get a nose.