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Kavitha L. Ranganathan, M.D. Cleft and Craniofacial Clinic Co-Director:
My name is Kavitha Ranganathan. I'm a plastic surgeon, and I'm also director of the cleft lip and palate clinic here at Shriners Children's Boston. One of the things that I first saw when I was a medical student was a cleft lip reconstruction when I was visiting a plastic surgeon in India just to shadow for the summer. And so the instant gratification that I saw from what it means to repair a child's cleft lip had me hooked from the beginning. And after that, there was no other field that I was as passionate about. And so then I did plastic surgery residency and chose to focus on craniofacial reconstruction. I've actually always dreamed of working at Shriners because the ability to care for any patient with a specific condition that walks in the door without having to care about anything else, whether it's financial, whether it's, you know, any sort of challenge that is possible. And so because of that, there's really no other environment where you're truly able to focus on patient care in that singular of a way where you're just focused on what is best for the patient. We do cleft care and burn reconstruction because we're so good at that and we're so passionate about it. I'm co-director of the Cleft Lip and Palate Clinic with Doctor Peacock, who is an oral maxillofacial surgeon, and the ability for us to collaborate from two different specialties, but focused solely on what a child with a cleft lip or palate needs that is extremely rewarding because of the fact that you get to brainstorm about tough cases together, you get to work with someone from a completely different field, learn from them, they get to learn from you. What I love about the clinic where you develop that relationship with your patients and their families and I think that's why we all went into medicine in the first place, is to develop that doctor patient connection that, you know, ever since medical school and actually even before, for me, you've always dreamt about.
