Making them comfortable

Published April 24, 2014
By Staff Sgt. Patrick Harrower
60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A person's face tells the story of their life.

For those who have fought hard battles, that story may be more prominent than others. Whether it was a bout with cancer, an explosion while deployed or just a congenital birth defect, they are forced to tell their story whether they feel like it or not.

For Tech. Sgt. Tim McGee, 60th Dental Squadron maxillofacial laboratory technician, it is his duty to get those patients back to the most aesthetically pleasing, natural look as possible.

"My goal is to get that patient to be able to walk into a grocery store and not have anybody staring at them or making them feel uncomfortable," he said. "Most patients have great attitudes because they already underwent treatments and are healed. My job is to get the rest of the world to feel as comfortable with it as they do."

McGee is one of only three active-duty technicians performing these duties in the entire AIr Force. His primary duty is to be a dental lab technician and being a maxillofacial laboratory technician is a specialized mission for him.

"I heard a lecture about it when I was in tech school and expressed interest in doing it," he said. "At the time, however, the Air Force wasn't doing it."

After 10 years, McGee got his chance.

The Air Force decided there was a need for maxillofacial laboratory technicians and reached out to the Navy for training. After a competitive application process McGee was chosen to attend a six-month course at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Md.

"DGMC is the flagship for the Air Force," said Col. Jose Villalobos, 60th DS chief of prosthodontics. "It's the ideal situation that we are able to support all these other surgeons and capabilities of the hospital."

After patients are referred to get a prosthetic by their doctor they are given an initial assessment and given a realistic idea of what can and cannot be restored. Villalobos and McGee will then both work on a prosthetic for a patient at the same time.

"Sometimes one of us will see something the other didn't see," McGee said. "So we both work on the patient at the same time. In the end, the patient will receive two prosthesis."

The patient will get a full face impression made of their face which is then copied into stone, giving the technician an accurate representation of what the patient and the defect look like. Then technicians can then use clay to sculpt and form a model of what the prosthetic will look like.

The clay mold is then used to make a silicon form that is custom-tinted to match the patient's skin tone. It is then cured overnight in a dry heat oven.

After touching up the skin tone, freckles and shading natural hair and eyelashes are added as a finishing touch before the patient receives the prosthesis.