Surgeon Profiles: Dr. Schmelzer

Contact Information:

801-743-0700

877-282-FACE (3223)

Fax 801-743-0701

Website:  http://www.craniofacialmd.com/

Blog:  http://www.craniofacialmd.com/blog/

Dr. Schmelzer practiced at PCMC several years ago, then left to practice in Arizona for a time. Now he has returned as a partner at Plastic Surgery Associates with Dr. Morales, and seems to be taking most of the new cleft lip and palate cases.

Parent Comments:

"Dr. Schmelzer is [our son]'s surgeon. We decided to continue with him after meeting Dr. Morales at a clinic in April. The entire family was not pleased with him as a surgeon as well as he scared the crap out of [our son]. We will either be seeing Dr. Schmelzer in Az or when he comes to St. George to see patients. . . . AWESOME bedside manner, great with kids, fantastic work and you know what to expect from surgery. Best in the West!"

"We have seen morales since our Adam was born in January 2009, and just this June Schmelzer performed Adam's hard palate repair because we now live in Arizona and had a very small window of vacation and morales was already booked into December. I too was skeptical because I had not even met Schmelzer prior to the day of surgery, but after the surgery was done I was VERY impressed. He is very capable and I will continue to see him. He does things differently than morales, I am glad we had morales up to this point for the prosthesis, but I really did like Schmelzer."

"My daughter has Dr Schmelzer. He is the type of dr that goes in to get the job done. I like him as a dr but if you are looking so someone that takes the time to get to know you than he is not the one to use. He has done 2 out of 3 surgeries for my daughter and I am pleased with his work she looks great. So it really depends how social you want to be with your dr."

"We scheduled a consultation with Dr. Morales for our son, because he came highly recommended. When we got to the appointment we met with Dr. Schmelzer. I really felt like the entire office was trying to pull a fast one on us. Almost trying to convince us that Schmelzer was in fact Morales. I have no idea if Schmelzer is a capable surgeon. I wasn't about to trust him with the most important thing in the world to me (my son!) when I felt deceived by him right out of the gate."

In the News: For Chris Myers, life is full of love, smiles

Here is a great article from ESPN about Chris Myers, who plays football on the Texans, and his son Keane, who was born with a cleft.

For Chris Myers, life is full of love, smiles

Pumping humor.

This has totally happened to me. And I really did cry. After I yelled at someone and cursed the universe.

Tiny Wide Smiles Cleft Dolls

Our friend Kate has her doll business up and running; check out her site for adorable dolls with clefts, good reads for kids and grown-ups alike, and training and community outreach materials!

http://www.tinywidesmiles.com/

Ads on the blog

You probably haven't noticed yet, but you may notice at some point that I've signed up with Google to have ads placed on the blog. I hope it isn't in bad taste on this kind of blog, but I thought that ads are a good way to earn something for nothing, and I plan to donate any proceeds from the blog to Smile Train or Primary Children's Medical Center. Just so you know!

Donate your arm restraints!

I got this email from another parent this morning:

Hey, fellow cleft parents!

A wonderful organization that does tons of work in Chinese orphanages is gearing up for an April cleft palate surgery trip and is looking for left over No Nos. If you have a leftover pair or three, here's a great cause to donate them to - I'm going to send ours off today!

Here's their contact info and post from Facebook:
Got No Nos? Plans are underway for our next cleft surgery trip to China - and we will need 50 pairs for the kids we heal. If you have a pair you could donate, please send them to

LWB,
306 S Bryant, Suite C 145
Edmond OK 73034

Apologies...

I just realized that there were several comments sitting in my moderation box that I hadn't seen! I thought I had set the blog so that it would email me when there were comments, but clearly I didn't do it right... My apologies to those of you whose comments were not posted until today! I turned off the comment moderation and I will just keep an eye on them from now on =)

-Meg