For fifty years, St. John’s Medical Center has hosted a symposium to educate health care providers, residents, fellows, patients, families, and members of the community on various aspects of care for children with cleft lip and palate and other craniofacial differences.

To our knowledge this is one of if not the longest running multidisciplinary conference of it kind focused on cleft and craniofacial disease. In fact, the Cleft Palate Program at St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica, California may be one of the first of its caliber to be established in the United States.

The theme of our 49th annual confernence was “A Focus on the Family” and our programming was dedicated to the experience of patients and their families as they journey through child and adolescence dealing with the challenges that their facial differences present.

Attendance was high, the we received feedback was amazing, and our gratitude to our patients and their families for allowing us to share their stories was overwhelming.