Face to Face with Dr. John Sarbak

A local plastic surgeon lives out his childhood dream while helping young patients in Peru

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Anesthesiologist Dr. Phillip Nye, registered nurse Jennifer Bailes, surgical technician Bonnie Nolan, and Dr. John Sarbak visit with a young patient in Peru. Photo courtesy of Dr. John Sarbak
Anesthesiologist Dr. Phillip Nye, registered nurse Jennifer Bailes, surgical technician Bonnie Nolan, and Dr. John Sarbak visit with a young patient in Peru. Photo courtesy of Dr. John Sarbak

Dr. John Sarbak aspired to be a plastic surgeon since he was an eighth grader in Erie, Pennsylvania. It is an exciting field in which he has the opportunity to enhance beauty and boost patients’ self-confidence. And, indeed, after attending the University of Notre Dame and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, followed by several residencies, he now runs a well-established practice in Vero Beach, where he and his wife have lived since 2001.

It is obvious that he both enjoys and takes pride in his work; but some of the most satisfying moments of his career have taken place on medical missions in Peru, where he has performed many surgeries on patients, usually children, suffering from cleft palates and/or cleft lips, known collectively as orofacial clefts.

He is not paid, and the journeys can entail some rugged travel. But in many ways, it is medicine at its purest and simplest: doctor and patient, healing and gratitude, without coding, insurance companies, or bureaucratic medical corporations getting in the way.

In the United States, clefts are treated early, and today’s procedures are so effective that the scars may be barely noticeable; thus, we rarely see people with clefts, much less unrepaired ones. But in poor countries, access to surgeons who can perform cleft repairs is not a given.

Clefts may affect one side or both, and they are characterized as partial or complete. A cleft lip almost always involves the nose to some degree. An infant born with a cleft lip often has difficulty forming the seal necessary for effective nursing and thus may suffer malnutrition. In the case of a cleft palate, the soft palate is always affected, and the hard palate may or may not be involved. In any case, the gap can be significant, preventing a baby from generating the suction needed for nursing. Beyond these potentially life-threatening consequences, clefts interfere with speech development and socialization.

For reasons not yet fully understood, clefts are more prevalent in certain ethnicities and geographic locations. Asia sees the highest rates of orofacial clefts, and the incidence is also disproportionately high in parts of South America, including Peru.

Dr. John Sarbak. Photo by Marie Irene Photography
Dr. John Sarbak. Photo by Marie Irene Photography

Through the nonprofit organization Smile Train and Rotary Club–related initiatives, Sarbak has participated in medical missions nearly every year since 2000. Each trip lasts three days to a week and includes as many as three surgeons and a dozen or so support team members. Sometimes, though, Sarbak has been the sole surgeon on a mission.

He operates from 7:30 or 8 a.m. until 8 or 9 p.m. A case with lip, nose, and palate involvement can take two and a half to three hours, while a simple cleft lip surgery may last only 30 to 45 minutes. The patients generally range in age from 10 months to 12 years, but he has treated people as old as 30.

Cleft repair brings profound, lifelong benefits, both functionally and socially. Sarbak is impressed by the spunk of the children he has served, even though he feels he needs to “do a much better job with speaking Spanish.” The trust and openness of his young patients say it all. “They’re brave kids,” he says. “All of them are eager to have the problem fixed, and they don’t whine or cry.” Upon waking, they invariably request photos of the results (cell phones being more common than mirrors these days).

Sarbak has found the mission work rewarding in more ways than one. “I’ve been trained by five to six different craniofacial surgeons in the United States, and each has a different style,” he explains. “I like having the international exposure I’d never had before.” In particular he mentions Dr. Carlos Navarro, a Houston-trained Peruvian surgeon who, in his extensive experience repairing clefts, has developed superior techniques that Sarbak has been able to bring back to the medical community in the United States.

The greatest reward, though, reveals his heart as a doctor: “I like going down and providing care to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to the kind of care we can provide.”

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