Finding a Doctor

So overall in dealing with cleft lips and palates, you are dealing with a specialist in that area. The specialist can be either an ear, nose and throat doctor or a specialist from plastic surgery. So plastic surgeons and ear, nose, and throat doctors are both trained, uh, in it throughout their training in general. But you want to go to the plastic surgeon or the ear, nose, and throat doctor who performs the procedure the most in the United States. These are specialists who either traveled to other countries and do it often or they have established practices here. My advice is to find a plastic surgeon or the ear, nose and throat doctor who is part of a group that takes care of these patients. You do not just need a doctor to take care of you and help with the surgery. You also need the speech pathologist, someone to help with swallowing issues, there are a whole host of other issues that you need to deal with, aside from the fact that a lot of these patients, when treated later in life, will have some psychiatric issues to deal with as well. So it is best to pursue a group rather than a single doctor because you do want continued care. If you can get that in the area that you live in, it’s much better because these patients do need some care throughout their lives, most of them throughout the beginning of childhood, and then as they get older, it just becomes simply monitoring the hearing and the drainage in the ear.