Page 6 - Behind The Smile - Winter 2016

Happy Retirement Dr. David Leber!
We are sad to report that in October, Dr. David Leber retired from plastic surgery and therefore will no longer be treating LCPC patients. We are grateful for his 37 years of care and service to
so many people. To mark the occasion the LCPC sta gave him a luncheon celebration. We wish him a happy retirement and hope to see him when he is next in Lancaster.
DaviD LebeR in His own woRDs
While a senior in high school in South Williamsport, PA, I entered the Science Fair competition with a life size model of the human torso showing cut-away views of the various organs. Through the contact with my family doctor, I was fascinated with the human anatomy as illustrated in the anatomy books he let me bor- row. At that time I knew I wanted to become a doctor.
I attended Albright College in Reading, PA for pre-medical school and then was accepted
at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. While
in medical school, I learned that
I wanted to be a surgeon where
I could work with my hands. A department of Plastic Surgery was started during my Junior year and I had the opportunity to see the intricate operations they were doing including hand surgery and cleft lip and palate. From that time on, there was no question that I
wanted to be a Plastic Surgeon. My interest in painting, drawing and sculpture and the human form further convinced me that plastic surgery would encompass all my interests.
The war in Vietnam was going on at the time and so I signed up in the US Army as an intern, spent one year in Vietnam and then completed my remaining two years at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco.
In 1971, I was invited to return to Temple University Hospi-
tal to do six years of residency training in General Surgery and Plastic Surgery. I was fortunate to train with three talented surgeons, each having var-
ied methods of cleft lip/palate repair. We had a well organized cleft palate clinic through Saint Christopher's Hospital for Chil-
“I was fortunate to train with three talented surgeons, each having varied methods of cleft lip/palate repair.”
dren and there I learned the technique necessary to perform successful lip and palate re- pairs, jaw surgery as well as to- tal ear reconstruction for those born without ears.
Dr. David Leber
When I completed my residency training, I became temporary chief of the Plastic Surgery Department responsible for the training of the remaining res- idents. Realizing that I would rather be in private practice, I found my way to Harrisburg in 1978 where I joined Dr. Rob-
ert Harding and Dr. Stephen Hereeg, both plastic surgeons who were working through the Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic. For the past 37 years, I have been coming to the LCPC one day
a month and for a number of years attended the Phillipsburg Cleft Palate Clinic every other month until that clinic closed.
What do I remember most? First of all, it's all about the children, seeing how they endure the long process of becoming as oral as possible through as many as six major operations
Page 6 ___________________________ Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic ••• Behind the Smile eMagazine ••• Winter 2016