Members in the News

Dr. Michael Jaskolka Named Director of Children’s Surgery

Barbara Buechler, administrator of the Betty H. Cameron Women’s & Children’s Hospital, is pleased to announce that Michael Jaskolka, MD, DDS, FACS, has accepted the position of Director of Children’s Surgery.

Dr. Jaskolka brought his significant skills and passion for children with traumatic and congenital abnormalities of the face to the NHRMC Physician Group in 2014. Dr. Jaskolka leads the NHRMC multi-disciplinary Cleft and Craniofacial Team which was accredited in 2016 by the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association and listed by the Cleft Palate Foundation.

Dr. Jaskolka’s new responsibilities focus on representing the interests of children’s surgery within NHRMC and the surrounding community including the transition of the new pediatric surgery team of Dr. Jeff Dehmer and Dr. Tim Weiner to Wilmington. Dr. Jaskolka will work closely with the Women’s & Children’s leadership team and surgical services to develop children’s surgery at NHRMC and together will demonstrate our mission of Leading Our Community to Outstanding Health by providing state of the art surgical care for children.

New Membership Category!

Posted: August 17, 2015

At the recent Houston meeting of the AACMFS in May, a new category of membership was passed – Postgraduate Member. Criteria for Post-Graduate membership are:

Applicant must be an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon who has completed training but who does not yet meet the requirements of active fellow.
Applicant must be certified by the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery or by the Canadian Equivalent.
The applicant must be recommended by two active fellow sponsors. It is preferable that at least one sponsor resides in the vicinity of the applicant and that both are fully aware of his or her credentials. A substantial component of the applicants practice shall be major hospital-based craniomaxillofacial surgery as interpreted by the membership committee.
Postgraduate membership shall be for a maximum of 5 years beyond board certification.
Postgraduate membership is not required to become an active fellow nor does it guarantee nor imply entrance into active membership.
The postgraduate members pays dues, can attend meetings, but does not vote nor hold office.

The goals of implementing this new membership category are to provide a pipeline for future membership, allow networking and mentoring of younger individuals, and have those young in their academic careers be available to share their research and surgical interests.

Those active fellows in the AACMFS who have such individuals on their faculty, in their fellowships, in their communities, etc. are encouraged to discuss postgraduate membership in the Academy and become their sponsors.

Leadership Transition in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

We are pleased to announce that Maria J. Troulis, DDS, MSc, has been named the next chief of the MGH Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS). She will also serve as the next Walter C. Guralnick Professor and chair of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM). These appointments are effective Aug. 1. Dr. Troulis succeeds Leonard B. Kaban, MD, DMD, who since 1994 has served as chief of OMFS at MGH and as the Guralnick Professor and chair of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at HSDM.

Dr. Troulis arrived at the MGH as a clinical and research fellow in Pediatric Craniomaxillofacial Surgery in 1997 and has remained an integral part of our hospital community ever since. During her career, she has changed the face of clinical OMFS by pioneering the use of minimally invasive surgical techniques, both distraction osteogenesis and endoscopic procedures. Her work in this area has paved the way for what has become the rapidly growing use of minimally invasive alternatives for the reconstruction of the jaw, particularly a part of the mandible known as the ramus-condyle unit. Dr. Troulis also refined the minimally invasive approach of endoscopic management of salivary duct stones, sparing many patients from invasive surgical procedures. She has been the acting director of the Skeletal Biology Research Laboratory since 2002.

The editor of three prominent textbooks, Dr. Troulis is the author or co-author of approximately 100 scientific articles and other peer-reviewed publications. She has produced three teaching videos and two monograms – including a prestigious Storz-Silver Book on sialendoscopy. Dr. Troulis has been the recipient of numerous NIH, foundation, CIMIT and industry grants. She is a diplomat of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery.

In addition to her many roles in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, she has served on a variety of key hospital committees, including the General Executive Committee and the Physician Organization Executive Committee. Active on the MGH Executive Committee on Teaching and Education, she currently sits on the newly formed Graduate Medical Education Committee and is a member of the Partners Education Committee and its Subcommittee of Evaluation and Feedback. She also has been a member of the Subcommittee on Research Animal Care at the MGH.

A well-respected educator and mentor, Dr. Troulis teaches at Harvard Medical School, HSDM and the Harvard-MIT Health, Sciences and Technology program. Since 2005, she has directed the Harvard-OMFS Residency Program and during the past decade has transformed it into one of the most preeminent programs in the country. She also serves as director of OMFS Grand Rounds and Pathology Conference. Her love and enthusiasm for teaching earned her Harvard’s Clifford Barger Award for Excellence in Mentoring in 2008, and in 2010 she was honored with the Harvard School of Dental Medicine Distinguished Senior Faculty Award.

In addition to her many achievements and strengths, Maria is known as a supportive colleague, a team player and a champion for the department and for the hospital. She is an outstanding communicator and a thoughtful and logical decision-maker. Countless colleagues, trainees, patients and families have benefited not only from her skill as a clinician, researcher and teacher, but also from the warmth and compassion she brings to all that she does.

Maria was born in Toronto and grew up in Montreal. She earned her master’s and doctor of dental surgery degrees from McGill University in Canada. She then completed her residencies at Royal Victoria Hospital and Montreal General Hospital before coming to the MGH for her fellowship.

As Dr. Troulis prepares to step into this much-deserved role, we want to express our deepest appreciation to Lenny Kaban for his 22 years of dedicated service, visionary leadership and strong guidance that has built and shaped Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Mass General into what is today one of the most respected programs in the nation. We also extend thanks to the OMFS search committee, led by Robert L. Martuza, MD, chief of the Neurosurgery.

Peter L. Slavin, MD
MGH President

Greg Pauly
Acting CEO and Chairman, MGPO

Festschrift Symposium Honors Dr. Leonard “Lenny” B. Kaban

In honor of his years as Department Chair at MGH, Lenny Kaban was recently honored by his colleagues at the time of his retirement. From October 31st to November 2nd a scientific and social program was held in Boston in recognition of his many educational and scientific contributions to the specialty and to the OMS Department at Massachusetts General. Many AACMFS Fellows were speakers and participants at this event. A number of the presentations were of such significant importance that they will be repeated at the May meeting of the AACMFS in Houston.

The Festschrift Committee Chairs were Dr. John Milliken, a plastic surgeon and long time friend and colleague of Lenny’s, along with Drs. Tom Dodson and Bonnie Padwa, also long time colleagues of Dr. Kaban and AACMFS Fellows. Excerpts from the program highlighted Dr. Kaban’s background and many accomplishments:

“Dr. Leonard Kaban was born in Brooklyn in 1944. His dream of becoming a jazz musician was eclipsed by his admittance to Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM). Today, Dr. Kaban is internationally recognized for his prominence in treating craniofacial deformities, performing pediatric oral and maxillofacial surgery, remediating jaw tumors in children and refining minimally invasive surgical techniques. His reach as a teacher, researcher and clinician is felt national and internationally across multiple medical specialties.”

The good news is that Lenny plans to continue his work at MGH, will be seeing and treating patients, and plans to spend more time doing research. We congratulate Dr. Kaban, one of the founders of the AACMFS, on the completion of his tenure as Department Chair of OMS at Massachusetts General.

M. Anthony Pogrel, DDS, MD Retirement Announcement

Tony Pogrel stepped down as chair of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of California San Francisco on June 30, 2014. He first joined the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in January 1983 having been a consultant in England for the preceding five years. He was appointed as an assistant professor and became program director in 1989 (under Len Kaban), and on Len’s return to Boston in 1994 he was selected as the new chair, a position he held for slightly over 20 years. For the moment he has no intention of retiring but is working full time in a clinical capacity in the Department and enjoying himself immensely. A celebration was held on May 31, 2014, for all alumni, faculty, and previous faculty of the Department, and over 160 people attended for a very enjoyable evening with lots of reminiscing.

Supporting and Educating Medical Humanitarians Around the World
HUMANI Magazine premieres

Inaugural edition featuring AACMFS Founding Fellow Dr. Steven Roser

“I can’t believe this hasn’t been done before” is a common remark by many when thumbing through their first copy of HUMANI. Debuting December 2013, the glossy print and online educational magazine shares “Best Practices” with medical humanitarians, helping them become safer and more effective when serving in Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief (HA/DR) operations.

Editorial contributors consist of surgeons and other health care providers from multiple specialties and uniquely qualified Army Special Forces veterans who share their vast knowledge on topics such as cultural integration, security and ground mobility operations, information acquired through years of serving vulnerable populations in high-risk environments and areas of conflict throughout the world.

HUMANI was founded by its Managing Editor Jay Stanka who served as a Green Beret medic in Northeastern Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom and later as a government contractor in Iraq building and managing medical clinics “from the dirt up” in Insecure Environments (IE) and on Protective Security Details (PSD) throughout Baghdad.

Stanka says HUMANI began as way to help NGOs raise awareness and funding for their own missions by offering corporations unparalleled recognition through mainstream and social media for their tax-deductible contributions. “Essentially, we have developed a unique methodology that provides ‘no cost’ marketing and advertising services for NGOs through editorial contributors supporting their own organizations and sponsorships to unconventional training programs provided by corporations that are recognized for their contributions,” says Stanka.

According to Gallup and other polls, military and medical professionals consistently rank at the top of professions recognized as ethical, trustworthy and capable. “These are important statistics,” says Stanka “especially since HUMANI offers readers the ability to follow in future editions how their donations are maximized by putting adequate resources into the hands of medical humanitarians who serve as ambassadors of goodwill bridging nations through medical diplomacy.”

To produce HUMANI, Stanka partnered with Derek Boccara, a magazine developer and graphic designer who he began working with over 15 years ago in Costa Rica’s adventure tourism industry. Stanka and Boccara then teamed with Marketing Director Kerry Spaedy who held the same position for the International Association of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons (IAOMS) from 2006-2011. Stanka and Spaedy first met in Santiago, Chile in 2011 at the IAOMS Disaster Relief training program where Stanka served as guest instructor through invitation by Dr. Steven Roser, Chief of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery at Emory University and a member of IAOMS’ Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief (HA/DR) Committee. Dr. Don Booth was the chairman of the HA/DR at this time.

Roser and Stanka first met in September 2010 at a Special Operations training facility out of North Little Rock, Arkansas. In response to the Haiti earthquake, the Direct Action Resource Center (DARC) hosted the Austere Medical Program (AMP): Unconventional Surgical Immersion Course (USIC), a live-tissue scenario-based Disaster Relief training program conceptualized by Stanka and fellow Special Forces veteran and DARC Founder Richard Mason. The first-of-its-kind program was developed in association with top surgeons and physicians from around the country and attended by universities to include Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UConn, and Emory and as well as IAOMS and International Medical Corps (IMC).

Not just a magazine –

HUMANI isn’t just an information source. Acting as a Civil-Military platform, HUMANI is a global human network that trains, equips and deploys individuals and teams with capacity-building capabilities that capitalize on a network of evaluated multidisciplinary and multilingual medical volunteers, and through strategic alliances with NGOs, medical associations and universities.

The newly-developed Mission Leaders Course (MLC), as described in HUMANI and provided by Special Forces veteran-owned companies DARC and Twenty Global, is a 4-day classroom and scenario-based “top-down” program that teaches surgeons and physicians to organize, plan and conduct humanitarian medical missions in austere environments. Corporations are provided opportunities to sponsor up to 20 participants with an invitation to a top surgeon from a foreign country who will participate as a “honored guest” to help participants plan a medical mission back to the host nation. These sponsorships include the printing and international distribution of HUMANI with recognition to the corporation, participating individuals and organizations and host facility, all on behalf of the corporation. The MLC can be hosted and conducted at any location with an Internet connection large enough to accommodate up to 20 participants and four instructors.

HUMANI is available by providing a tax-deductible contribution to its joint venture partner Austin Smiles, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that provides reconstructive plastic surgery, cleft lip and palate repairs to the children of central Texas and across Latin America. To 1) purchase a copy of the magazine for just $25; 2) view the 76-page magazine online; or 3) for detailed information on upcoming training programs and medical deployments, visit the HUMANI website at www.HumaniMag.TV.

HUMANI
Military & Medical Veterans
“Serving the world and each other”