The Face Of Compassion -- Wayne Larrabee Is A Plastic Surgeon, But He's Also A Teacher, A Photographer And A Poet

This is one of an occasional series of stories profiling a member of our regional medical/health community. To suggest someone in the health field who would make an interesting story, write to The Seattle Times, Scene Health reporter, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, Wa., 98111 or fax 206 464-2239.

The photograph Dr. Wayne Larrabee shot near the British Museum en route to Croatia symbolizes what his life has become. There is an oversized sculpture of a broken face in the foreground, and behind the lens is the man who puts peoples' faces back together - correcting the damage of bombs in Croatia, birth deformities in Mexico and domestic violence in Seattle.

Larrabee, a facial plastic surgeon, is many things - doctor, published poet, photographer, professor and philanthropist. He donates two to three weeks a year to a program called Face to Face, sponsored by the American Academy of Facial and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. During a typical trip, he spends 12 hours a day in surgery for the first part of the week, and helps local doctors hone facial reconstruction skills during the final days. In spare moments, he snaps photos and writes poems.

This year, Larrabee, 50, was selected president of the 3,000-member national academy. He was also listed in the 1994-95 edition of "Best Doctors in America." He has been a clinical professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Washington since 1979 and directs the Center for Facial Plastic Surgery on First Hill.

"I just do faces," he says. Facial plastic surgeons are a distinct branch of plastic surgery.

A mission to Zagreb

Larrabee was one of two Seattle facial plastic surgeons who returned last week from a Face to Face mission to a children's hospital in Zagreb. Some of the patients had war-related facial injuries, although conditions have calmed now, he said. Among the procedures Larrabee performed was completing the last of five surgeries on a 16-year-old girl with hyperteliorism, which means she was born with eyes extremely far apart. He began her surgery nearly three years ago.

In stages, the surgical team sliced and peeled the skin down from the top of her head, exposing her forehead. A section of bone was removed and her brow pushed closer together. Extra cartilage from her ears was used to reshape her nose, and medical-grade Gore-Tex (yes, like the rain jacket) fleshed out the rest of her nose.

On overseas trips, local families feed and house the surgical teams, which can include a combination of plastic surgeons and a nurse, anesthesiologist and sometimes a speech pathologist.

The academy added domestic-violence victims to its pro bono work in 1994. Larrabee has done some of those surgeries. In Seattle the staff of the Domestic Abuse Women's Network refers women with facial injuries to the program after they have left the cycle of domestic violence.

The doctor's work is rewarding. Tiny smile lines twinkle around his eyes as he holds up a hand-crocheted table lace and embroidered cloth napkins the Croatian girl gave him for his work on her face. These and her great appreciation were his only payment.

In his private practice, Larrabee's business is predominantly cosmetic surgery, so reconstructive surgery is a challenging change of pace. But overall, his job is to help people be happy with the way they look, and he enjoys that.

"It seems funny based on my background in public health," Larrabee said. "I've very much enjoyed the cosmetic surgery. It's the best of both worlds."

Larrabee has a warm smile and a humble but matter-of-fact manner. His personality belies his accomplishments: a dozen awards bestowed for public service and excellence in the teaching and practice of facial plastic surgery, and more than 60 articles and books on related subjects. Technological advances in cosmetic surgery have helped him perfect techniques in reconstructive surgery, such as repairing a cleft lip and nose.

Poetic detail

Larrabee's professional creativity and attention to detail translate to his other interests: photography and poetry. So much so that Larrabee has published dozens of poems in literary magazines and booklets. His book of photographs, "Roslyn - Portrait of a Town," chronicling Roslyn mining history through portraits of the people who lived it, is due out in June. He gathered the material during family vacations at his cabin in Roslyn. He's glad because he said the television show "Northern Exposure" changed the town's character quite a bit.

The 50-year-old plastic surgeon started his career in public health and tropical medicine in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, after earning his medical degree from Tulane Medical School in New Orleans in 1971. For three years, as an Army major, he directed the medical corps work in the Panama Canal zone, including assisting the Cuna Indians of Panama and earthquake victims in Nicaragua. He won an Army commendation medal for his service. Larrabee started out in Seattle at Virginia Mason Medical Center in 1979, and opened the Center for Facial Plastic Surgery in 1990. He is also on the staff of Children's and Swedish hospitals.

A branch of Larrabee's family tree stems from the medical field. His uncle was a neuroanatomist, his father a dentist and his mother worked in hospital administration after his father died in an accident when Larrabee was 12. One of his three brothers is a pharmacist, his sister is a nurse. Children and nature

Larrabee's family includes three children he and his wife adopted during, or because of, his travels. His eldest son, Shane, 20, is from Costa Rica. Sascha, 18, of Mexican ancestry, was adopted in Texas while Larrabee was a medical resident in New Orleans. And Kai, 14, was adopted from Cali, Colombia, in 1981.

Many of the poems in his self-published collection, "Racing the Train," reflect images of children and nature. The following is titled "Orcas Island:"

I watch my son, dancing on the shore. He whispers to shells of departed clams; explores a blood star, fingering the secret mouth, underneath. His pole catches seaweed fish; pale, green - they shimmer and dive. Hands grasp jellyfish, dream-clear; swimming, they disappear.

Morning becomes memory; two lines drawn with light, sky on sea, sea on shore. His iridescent spirit sanctifies the land. ----------------------------------------------------------------- American Voices

"evryone has an anchanging age (or sometimes two) carried within them, beyond expression"

Denise Levertov from Evening Train.

He hit my head

again and again

against the wall

always in the same place

until my eye turned inward.

I smile when I see my nose

no longer twisted but beautiful

as it was before.

The scars of knife and cigarettes,

the sars in memory-

fade in the mirror,

fade in my mind.

No one but me notices the check bone

no longer flat but curved lie a wing.

The cries (finally) disappear.

My eye is opne now.

I can see the child carried whithin-

the child of promise

the child of sorrow.

the child of grace.