GLOBAL AWARENESS
Restoring lives
Plastic surgeon's mission trips back home are helping women choose life after diagnosis By Kendra Y. Mims-Applewhite
ASPS member Michael K. Obeng, MD, first witnessed the transformative power of reconstructive surgery
at age 15 when Operation Smile volunteers came to his village in Ghana and performed surgery on a neighbor who sustained severe burns after her husband threw acid on her face. Michael K. Obeng, MD The reconstructive procedure brought her out of hiding, he notes. “This woman became a recluse and never left her home,” Dr. Obeng recalls. “I didn’t know much about medicine at the time, but when I saw the impact of Operation Smile, I knew I wanted to become a surgeon when I grew up. I never forgot that moment.” Dr. Obeng, now a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, came to the United States at age 20 and pursued a career in plastic surgery. During medical school, his mentor, ASPS member John H. Miller, MD, suggested they lead a mission trip to Ghana to provide free reconstructive surgery, but he was unable to do so due to his busy
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l PSN: BREAST RECONSTRUCTION 2020
schedule. Still, the idea stayed with him. mission trips focused on breast cancer Eight years later, Dr. Obeng founded and breast reconstruction, and he says he his nonprofit R.E.S.T.O.R.E (Restoring hopes the organization’s efforts in Ghana Emotional Stability Through Outstanding can alleviate women’s fear and change Reconstructive Efforts) Worldwide Inc., their mindset, as many women prolong to provide free reconstructive surgery treatment until they are in advanced stages in developing countries to children and of the disease. adults with congenital and accidental “Women in their 40s presented with deformities. To date, Dr. Obeng and his stage 3 and 4 breast cancer,” he says. RESTORE team of volunteers have “Young women were dying because they traveled to seven countries and provided didn’t want to have a mastectomy. They more than 1,000 surgeries. are so afraid. Many would rather die with After learning the grim breast cancer their breasts than to have a mastectomy, mortality rate for Ghanaian women (more than 15 percent), Dr. Obeng returned to his home country for his nonprofit’s first mission trip and performed the region’s first immediate breast reconstruction in 2009 using abdominal tissue on a nurse who had refused to undergo a mastectomy without reconstruction because she feared losing her husband – a widespread concern among Ghanaian women, he Dr. Obeng and his team. notes. Several RESTORE
