HOUSTON — Having major surgery can be traumatic for children and their parents but a Houston surgeon found a fun way to make the healing process more bearable.
Dr. Matthew Greives is a UTHealth Houston pediatric plastic surgeon with Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. He specializes in craniofacial reconstruction for kids who have congenital issues with the brain, skull or face or trauma to their face or skull.
Greives began turning post-op gauze head wrappings into things like bunny or bear ears for his young patients a few years ago. Then he came up with the idea to create colorful superhero helmets to protect their heads during recovery. That took things to another level.
"I think it's a great way to just take a really scary situation and make it fun for the families and kids," Dr. Greives said. "I really like my superhero ones. I'm a huge Captain America fan, so when I started doing the Captain American ones with the wings and the blue, I thought those were phenomenal."
He's also done Spider-Man, Batman, Flash and Minions.
The creative process and the reaction from the kids make his often stressful job a lot more fun.
"It's super fun for me. I'm a plastic surgeon so we're all about innovation and design," Greives said. "We're taking things we have in the operating room and sort of MacGyvering them into something new."
He said his whole team gets into it and the med students love it.
"It's really a team effort and everybody's got a great idea that they can contribute to make a great product for the kids at the end."
Before their surgeries, the patients get to choose which character they want.
Eleven-month-old Ellie Patel requested a Minion wrap. She was born with a birth defect called craniosynostosis, which caused the bones in her skull to join together too soon. When it happens before the baby’s brain is fully formed, the skull can become misshapen as the brain grows.
Dr. Greives performed a cranial vault reconstruction to reshape Ellie's bones to help accommodate the brain’s growth. When she woke up in recovery, she was wearing her blue and yellow Minion bandage.
"My go-to is the Minion," Dr. Greives said. "I think they're just fun and I don't know anybody who doesn't like a minion so those have been super fun for me."
Ellie has since made a full recovery and her parents say her favorite thing to do is chasing her dog around the house.
