Operation Mend is a unique collaborative program between UCLA Medical Center
and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, that provides reconstructive
plastic surgery for U.S. military wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This Marine was severely burned by an improvised explosive device (I.E.D.).
His face was skin grafted and the nose reconstructed by a forehead flap using
skin and cartilage grafts to recreate the nostrils. His eighth rib was used for
support.
Dr. Timothy Miller, Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UCLA, leads
these surgeries.
