Paul Tessier

Paul Tessier (1917 – June 6 2008) was a French surgeon. He was considered as the father of modern craniofacial surgery.

Biography

Born in Brittany, Dr. Tessier first attended the Ecole de Médecine in Nantes, France, eventually receiving his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Faculté de Médecine de Paris (Paris Faculty of Medicine) in 1943. In 1942, during internship he started operating on people with cleft lip and Dupuytren's contracture. He joined the pediatric surgery service at Hospital St. Joseph in Paris in 1944. From late 1944 to 1946, he worked at the Center of Maxillofacial Surgery of the Military Region of Paris in Hospital Puteaux. In 1949, he returned to Nantes to become a surgical consultant in ophthalmology.

Dr. Tessier started to improve surgical techniques to correct craniofacial deformations in mid-1950s. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he developed the following methods:

* Using autogeneous (patient's own) bone grafts instead of silicone or acrylic to modify skull and facial contours. [P. Tessier et al. Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery. vol. 116 (5) SUPPLEMENT, October 2005.]
* Transcranial and subcranial correction of orbital hypertelorism.
* Techniques for correcting Treacher Collins syndrome.
* Correction of oro-ocular clefts.

In 1970s, he began traveling to the United States to demonstrate his procedures. Today, his techniques are applied not only to plastic surgery, but also other specialties such as trauma and neurosurgery.

Honors

Dr. Tessier was a founding member of the International Society of Craniofacial Surgery and the European Association of Maxillofacial Surgeons. He was an honorary member of the American College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Surgeons at London, and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

References

*S. Anthony Wolf, "Paul Tessier, Creator of a New Surgical Specialty, is Recipient of Jacobson Innovation Award", Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, vol 12, 98-99 (2001) [http://www.jcraniofacialsurgery.com/pt/re/jcransurg/fulltext.00001665-200101000-00019.htm;jsessionid=GzPNQMm3VyJN51h2QBwcqxLLskfhmd2mkySZ0TV221T2Lmpv2v4n!2112021004!181195629!8091!-1 URL] accessed 08-03-2007.