*”Great surgeon and team. Dr. Martin is very “no nonsense and to the point.” Surgery was about 6 hours long at 6 months of old with lip and palate done together. Beautiful results and amazing after care with no restrictions.”

*”Surgeon was very personable”
*”Very comfortable with his style.”

*”We first met with Dr. Magee when I was 35 weeks pregnant. I brought my 3-D ultrasounds of my baby’s face and spoke about an hr. We are about 2 hours away from the hospital, so he said he would like us to email him photos of our baby once he was born and then he could speak over the phone with us regarding what needed to be done. Made things so much easier. After sending newborn photos, he called us and had a very heartfelt conversation with us letting us know what he thought needed to be done, and also made a point to tell us to enjoy our time with our baby, take time for ourselves and for me to recover from having the baby, and not to let the process overwhelm us. Since day one Dr. Magee has proven to have very personable and caring side which to me is so important when trusting your baby to someone who will be working on their face. We met with him again when our baby was 2 weeks old.

Our baby had an incomplete cleft lip with nose involvement and alveolar gum cleft. With our circumstance, he recommended a silicone nasal stent to be taped in from that point, up until surgery to help guide the nostril open during the waiting period before surgery could be performed.
The morning of our surgery, we were told to come in at 5:30am and we were his 1st case. (Our baby was able to nurse up until 3:30am the night before surgery.) Everyone who came into contact with us was very friendly and made us very comfortable which was so important since we were nervous that our baby was about to have surgery. As we handed our baby off, a sweet nurse who was pregnant wanted to hold him and carry him back while holding his pacifier in his mouth to keep him happy. They assured us that he would have the mask with anesthesia to put him to calmly put him to sleep before they even hooked him up to an i.v., which made me super happy that he didn’t have to be in pain or distress before surgery.

Surgery was almost 3 hours, and then Dr. Magee met with us in the waiting room, sat down, and discussed with us how it all went. Then he took us back to recovery and my baby was already awake, being held by a nurse who was comforting him and rocking him. He had a nasal stent stitched into his nose which had to be left in for a month, and also had dermabond which is a clear rubbery skin glue over his lip to keep his lip from moving too much while it was healing (which I think helped the healing a lot since post op, babies will cry a lot, at least mine did) and the glue was to be left completely alone until 2 weeks post op, when we were instructed pull what was left of it off. I was able to try to nurse him immediately after surgery, which he happily took to. We stayed in recovery for a couple hours, got our medications filled, and gave our baby his first dose of Tylenol w/codine before heading back home. Our baby was pretty swollen and groggy but he managed to give us his firs t post surgery smile. Dr. Magee gave us his phone # and told us to contact him ANY time and he would be available to help with any questions or concerns. He asked that we text him weekly photos of our baby’s nose and lip and that we would not have to come in until 1 month post op unless he seen a reason to since we are 2 hours away. Dr. Magee is the oldest son of the founders of Operation Smile, which most people have heard of, and was exposed to the challenges of children with craniofacial anomalies at an early age. Since he was 13, he has assisted Operation Smile teams all over the world in various roles. This is what attracted us to him as well as the great reviews I personally read from his patients on a forum I use. We are currently 6 weeks post up, and our baby looks great!”

*”Great surgeon, team could be better.”

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*So far, is been great with the lip adhesion and lip repair. We are yet to undergo palatoplasty in 4 months.

*Our surgeon is amazing, and the team has been wonderful. I think I’ve had a better experience because I’ve been able to go to meetings armed with info from our mommy groups!
*We have mostly had a great experience with the cleft team, barring one person, the orthodontist’s assistant.
*She is an absolute perfectionist with an excellent bedside manner, and LISTENS to me:)
*She’s a great surgeon and has been doing cleft surgeries for a long time, and spends a lot of time with her patient’s. I checked “”very good”” because I wish she were a little more personable.”

*They are very cohesive. A full report is given after the yearly clinic. It’s thorough. I like that the team is headed by a geneticist.
*It’s all in the repair. He is a nice person, but says very little. But really, I care about how well he does the repair, which have been excellent.
*There are several surgeon choices, meaning several approaches to the same repair within one team. We only met with the surgeon we chose because we felt confident in his ability and didn’t want to confuse ourselves with another approach. If we had time during the pregnancy, maybe we would have explored more of the options. Bottom line is this one team does have options.

Currently no Reviews.

Dr. Lorenz was great. He took the time to explain everything to us in detail. The team is very friendly, and the wait is never too long for team appointments.
He didn’t excellent job on my son. My son was beautiful with this cleft but Dr. Lorenz did an excellent job with his repairs. I was surprised but grateful that no appliances were necessary with this team. While I have seen great results with children on the boards taping or having other appliances I feel like it would be an added stress on top of an already stressful experience.

Positive from the very beginning, this is an amazing team.

*We felt like we bonded with the entire cleft team. We always had our questions answered. Our orthodontist went above and beyond getting our insurance to cover the cost of the NAM. I wouldnt have picked another place to go.
*Answer all my questions and sent me to the directions I needed
*Dr. Gosman truely is an artist. We couldnt have asked for a better outcome than what we got.
*Great work, however bedside manner isn’t the greatest.
*I literally didn’t know what to expect and she explained everything I needed to know or should know.

*I love Caleb’s palate team. They are awesome and they always let me know what the next step is.
*At age 7 my son needed another palate surgery to help with his speech. They also repaired his lip a little bit. He will be getting a bone graft to close the fistula in his gum line between 9 & 11 yrs old. But first the orthodontist has to widen his cleft so all his teeth are lined up properly.

*We have had a wonderful experience with out cleft team and surgeon! Everyone communicates well and is extremely friendly and supportive. The team is great about customizing a care plan very specific to your child and they have great follow-up with regular cleft panel meetings (a full morning meeting that includes RN, pediatric dietitian, geneticist, pediatric dentist/orthodontist, surgeon, social worker, etc – not all these individuals are at every meeting). Our surgeon Dr Lim did a wonderful job with our son’s lip repair (our son with born with UCL and alveolar gum line notch) and we are pleased to say that we should be surgery free for the next several years! We also appreciated how approachable Dr Lim was with our pre and post surgical concerns, that made all the difference in the world! There was a pre and post surgical protocol but it was flexible to some extent as to what would work best for our child. We can’t thank this tea m enough for all they have done for us!!

*My experience has been good. I find that the more questions I ask, the more info I receive. I think this team likes a pro-active parent! The staff is also very helpful, kind and well educated.

*They really listen to the concerns of the parents and make you feel comfortable. They’ll give you their professional recommendation but will only go forward if you are okay with it.
*My daughter had a very minor cleft lip, with no nose or palate involvement. I was able to breast feed all along, and even breastfed immediately after surgery, with our surgeon’s blessing. We had a wonderful experience with Dr. Hoffman and the entire team at UCSF.
*This was our second team after not meshing well with the first. UCSF is amazing!!

*The orthodontist didn’t seem extremely experienced with NAM. Was initially frustrated with her responsiveness but some of that is me being a first time mother and overly sensitive/scared.

*I like their orthodontic orientation. They are very into structure and making choices for the long term and to minimize the number of surgeries without compromising results. Example… They want to promote growth of the premaxilla as much as possible so they don’t close up the gums in the lip surgery. This is partially because the Lower jaw is the last thing to grow and so you want  To promote as much distance as possible in the upper jaw by allowing it  To grow. This just makes a ton of logical sense to me  I also interviewed Oakland children’s hospital and Stanford and just really liked the nurse practitioner and philosophy of ucsf even though it’s less convenient  For me (they’re getting a new facility in 2015)  Oakland children’s doesn’t use nam and Stanford uses it more for unilateral while my baby was bilateral so that factored into my decision.”