From the Bench with Francis
A regular column on craniofacial news and technology by Dr. Francis Smith
My International Outreach Experience: Australia,
UK, and Ireland, September 2017
My career has been evolving
into a combination of craniofacial scientific research and public engagement
and advocacy for awareness of craniofacial anomalies and the advances in
medicine and research for them. My life experience with Treacher Collins syndrome
has placed me in the unique position of an ambassador between the personal life
experience side and research and medicine and the public. Back in my childhood
and youth, I was occasionally featured in my local and state newspapers, on TV,
and on radio to tell my story, and once authored a chapter in Jill Krementz’
1992 book, How It Feels to Live with a
Physical Disability. Over the years, my opportunities for public outreach
have expanded. As I have ventured far and wide on this planet, I have gained a larger,
global audience, having studied in the United Kingdom and gone on to work in
the USA and Canada. My first overseas opportunity for public engagement through
speaking was in 2010, when I presented an invited keynote lecture to the dental
school at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.
During my life in
Canada from 2012-2015, I was interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (CBC) TV and radio locally and nationally. When I moved back to the
US in 2015, I did my first podcast (with BoneLab Radio at the University of
California San Francisco, my PhD alma mater) and began contributing to the
CCAKids Blog with my own regular feature, “From the Bench with Francis”. I have
also spoken in churches and other public venues as well as in schools in the US
and Canada in recent years. My memoir, Wonderfully
Made: The Dr. Francis Joel Smith Story, authored by Michele DuBroy and
myself, is in publication and should be released sometime next year.
I have recently ramped up my
global drive for public engagement. Last year (January 2016), I made my first
return visit to London since I finished my education there in 2007, and
revisited my alma mater King’s College London, spoke to my old craniofacial
department there, interviewed my old mentors at King’s, spoke at another
university’s event, and even visited a colleague in Dundee, Scotland, to
interview him too for my ongoing project of collecting video in-person
interviews with craniofacial researchers.
This year has been especially
busy. Last month (September 2017), I visited three countries—Australia, the UK,
and Ireland. In March, I had met some new
Australian colleagues at the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association
(ACPA) meeting in Colorado Springs. Upon meeting me, they wanted me to come visit
them in Australia the next chance I got. I finally got the opportunity to do so
last month, and made my first ever trip to Australia (which had been a
childhood bucket list item).
So, from August 28 through September 6, I
journeyed down under. I ended up in Perth, Western Australia. On Friday,
September 1, I gave a talk to the craniofacial doctors and scientists at
Princess Margaret Hospital for Children about my life experience with Treacher
Collins syndrome, my educational journey, and my research experience. After my
talk, my colleagues I had met in Colorado earlier this year took me through the
craniofacial clinic there and on one of the wards to meet patients, doctors,
families, and others. The next day (Saturday the 2nd), I spoke to a
group of families—FaceUp, a local craniofacial family support group, about my
life experience. Early in the following week, I gave yet another talk—to a
group of geneticists at King Edward Hospital. Sometime during my week in Perth,
I returned to Princess Margaret Hospital and met with a new research colleague
who does 3-D camera imaging of children with craniofacial anomalies and
morphometric analysis of their facial shape, to help surgeons plan surgeries
and predict the ideal facial shape postoperatively.
He expressed a greater need
in Western Australia for more expertise. I have experience and expertise in
craniofacial imaging and morphometrics (from working in Canada previously), and
have put him in touch with my US and Canadian colleagues in craniofacial
morphometrics. I have also expressed an interest in working there in Australia
with my expertise in craniofacial morphometrics, if and when an opportunity
(and funding) becomes available; they are keeping an eye open for one. I have
also been invited to give a talk next May in Sydney as a guest speaker at their
national cleft palate meeting.
After a week’s rest at home
from my trip to Australia, I got right back on a plane on September 16—to
London, England, to revisit my alma mater King’s College London and give talks
there and at another university in the UK and meet colleagues in England and
Ireland, for a fortnight (two weeks, in British English). I spent a week and a
half in London, revisiting old neighborhoods and old haunts from my life there
(2004-2007); I was right back at home there. I gave a talk to students and
faculty in the craniofacial department at King’s about my life experience,
education, and research, and met afterwards over drinks with students. I also
met old friends in London during that week. Later that week, I visited the UK
charity Changing Faces, and met with their executive staff, who expressed an
interest in working with the CCA in the US on collaborative efforts at raising
craniofacial awareness and promoting the upcoming film Wonder in the UK. I was instrumental in getting Changing Faces and
CCA working together. I went up to Norwich and met another research colleague
and gave a talk at his university, the University of East Anglia. There, I met
with a family—all of whom have Treacher Collins syndrome to varying degrees.
Later, I went to Manchester and interviewed with Dr. Michael Dixon, who found
the gene for TCS in the 1990s, for my interview project. After my week and a
half in London, I flew to Dublin, Ireland (my ancestral homeland) to visit a
craniofacial surgeon colleague who works at Temple Street Children’s Hospital
and Mater Hospital in Dublin. In our discussion, he expressed a great need for
craniofacial scientific research there in Ireland, and I expressed an interest
in helping him if I could think up a research proposal. My colleagues in the UK
and Ireland are aware of my search for a new research position there, and I
hope I can eventually find one there, if not in Australia or (less likely) the
US. Since London was my first home away from home, and my career in
craniofacial research was birthed there, I yearn to return to London one day
and work there…once a Londoner, always a Londoner.
My current postdoctoral
fellowship here in Denver ends April 2018, so wish me the best in finding my
next position—in Australia, the UK, Ireland, etc. Meanwhile, my public
engagement work will continue to take me to parts unknown on this planet. In
fact, my next trip is to Bauru, Brazil, for three weeks in November, to visit
the Hospital for Rehabilitation of Craniofacial Anomalies, a whole hospital
dedicated just to craniofacial research and treatment. That might open future
opportunities for my career, too!
We have connected with a real life Auggie (Jakob) from the CCA organization and are awaiting our first return pen pal letter from him.
