Mission Trips
Mission Trips
Giving back
Dr. Rafael Magana is proud to support altruistic missions that improve the lives of children and adults around the globe. Each year, thousands of surgical procedures are done by volunteers visiting remote and underprivileged places around the world. Dr. Magana considers himself fortunate to partake in some of these mission trips.
When helping patients as a volunteer in foreign countries, Dr. Magana relies on the same philosophy that he follows when assisting patients while back at his office in Greenwich, Connecticut. Everyone deserves to feel seen, heard and confident.
More About Dr. Maganas Medical MissionWork
Throughout his career, Dr. Magana has focused on using his skills and training as a doctor to help people worldwide access medical resources and care. This passion for making medical care accessible has led him to participate in mission trips in South East Asia. Magana Plastic Surgery is proud to share some background on Dr. Magana's altruistic missions to help you get a better sense of what our practice is all about.
As a medical student, Dr. Magana traveled to Mexico City to volunteer in the national polio vaccination program. During this mission, he was able to help vaccinate several hundred children living in underprivileged areas of Mexico City. Without this program, these children likely would never have been given an opportunity to benefit from immunizations. Programs like this that take place around the world allow millions of children to grow up to thrive.
After completing medical school and 13 years of postgraduate training, Dr. Magana felt a strong passion for helping people who did not have access to surgical care in remote parts of the globe. This passion led him to participate in missions in South East Asia to help children and adults in need. He is often able to use his expertise as a craniofacial specialist to assist with reparative procedures. Many times, people in more impoverished areas of the world suffer their entire lives with correctable cosmetic and cranial deformities that are usually treated at birth in more developed areas of the world. These deformities can lead to social discrimination, long-term infections and a variety of other problems that could be avoided with the right surgical intervention.
In February of 2016, Dr. Magana had the privilege of traveling to a remote region in the Philippines with a surgical team to perform cleft-lip repairs, cleft-palate repairs and other procedures requiring reconstructive cranio-facial surgery. More than 100 patients were able to get much-needed care as a result of this mission!
Forever changed by his 2016 volunteer trip to the Philippines, Dr. Magana returned to the country in January of 2020 to visit an underserved area on the island of Mindanao with an organization called Operation Care Abroad. During his visit, Dr. Magana performed procedures on cleft-lip and palate deformities. Also, he was able to work with the organization's neurosurgical team to help children with cranial deformities. Several children received life-changing surgery to correct a severe deformity called encephalocele that dramatically alters the appearance of the cranium and forehead.
Dr. Magana has plans to return to the Philippines again with future teams to help more children and adults get access to life-changing procedures that can improve health and quality of life. He is pleased to have the opportunity to use his extensive training and knowledge in the fields of cosmetic surgery and craniofacial procedures to bring care to those in need.