On June 8th 1972, a nine year old girl was playing with her cousins in a Vietnam village when American Forces suddenly bombed the village with Napalm. Napalm is a flammable liquid that sticks to skin and causes severe burns when ignited. This young girl’s photo was captured by a journalist for Time Magazine–her clothes burned off of her body as she runs from the wreckage in horror.
She spent the next 15 months in a hospital and underwent 17 operations to treat numerous wounds in an effort to save her life from infection. The girl is Kim Phuc and she now dedicates her life to helping children who suffer from traumatic skin conditions like scars.
Kim Phuc recently spoke at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery on April 7th, 2017. Now she shares her inspirational journey of transformation from pain to positivity with others. At Advanced Dermatology and Laser, we welcome and assist patients with many kinds of scars in the skin–one such method of treatment being laser resurfacing which Kim Phuc used to reduce the appearance of her own scars.
Dr. Greene had the opportunity to meet and talk with Kim Phuc at the ASLMS Conference on April 7th, 2017
References: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc. Kim Phuc, Annual Meeting of the American Society for Lasers and Surgery 2017.