New Face to the World

Alex Greenberg ’79 is a pioneering oral and maxillofacial surgeon.

by Dan Edelen

“Can you get me a new face?”

That’s all the teenager wanted. Dr. Alex Greenberg ’79 was there.

Alan Doherty was born without a lower jaw—otofacial syndrome it’s called, and calling it rare is an understatement. Doherty’s is one of two known cases in the world. He can’t eat or even breathe normally. He uses a voice-generating keypad to speak. His most painful burden of all, though, had always been the face in the mirror. But that was before the lively, go-ahead boy, then aged 16, visited America from his native Ireland in 2006 to compete in the Empire State Games for the Physically Challenged.

At Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, an extraordinary plan was launched to give Doherty the new face he wished for. Beginning the following June, Greenberg and a team of plastic and reconstructive surgeons performed procedures totaling more than 70 hours over 15 months. They started by fashioning a jaw with dental implants from a portion of Doherty’s hip bone. The team then placed the new jaw under the skin of his shoulder to provide blood vessel and nerve growth. In a later procedure that stretched 16 grueling hours, they implanted the jaw and reworked the facial musculature to accommodate it.

The surgeons used techniques never before performed in combination, Greenberg says. “There was substantial risk, but we were willing to take that risk because of the condition of his life. He had a very disfiguring condition and was affected enough that anytime anyone looked at him, it would pierce him. This is a young man who would have stayed in the shadows.”

There are no shadows now for Doherty, whose story has been spotlighted on both sides of the Atlantic. Bertie Ahern, the former Irish prime minster, and musician Rod Stewart are among those who have championed Doherty’s cause and helped raise money for his operations.

A pioneer in his field, Greenberg was the first American chosen for a fellowship to study under Paul Tessier, the father of modern craniofacial surgery, in Basel, Switzerland. He wrote and edited his first book on craniomaxillofacial fracture repair at age 33. He holds 11 patents for medical tools, with eight more pending, and has founded two companies.

“I have moments of insight that are extremely practical,” he says. “That’s worked for me in a lot of different areas, whether it’s a dental product, a new surgical device, or a new surgical procedure.”

Greenberg’s insight and expertise also helped renew Denise Egielski’s looks and life. With difficulty and discomfort, she had lived more than 50 years without a jaw—it had been surgically removed because of a tumor when she was two. Her case was seen as “beyond the capabilities of modern medicine,” Mount Sinai says, but Greenberg and his colleagues created an implant from the jaw bone of a deceased 15-year-old boy. Her children experienced a new joy: their mother’s smile.

“The face is exposed to everyone,” Greenberg says. “When you’re able to give people their appearance and restore their self-esteem, that’s a powerful service.”