Getting to know: Carlos Gaete

As an adjunct member of the AO CMF Community Development Commission (CDC), Carlos Gaete provides valuable insights from Latin America in support of AO CMF's online presence, study clubs, the AO CMF Facebook case discussion group, and member engagement. In this article, he discusses social media’s role in community development, the particular needs of surgeons in Latin America, and the experiences that have inspired him as a surgeon.

Where are you now? Where do you practice and/or teach?

I’m living in Santiago, the capital city of Chile, and working in two big hospitals here. The first one is Hospital del Trabajador, a trauma center and an AO CMF fellowship center, where I’m a member of a multidisciplinary team dedicated to treating serious facial trauma situations and their sequelae. The other one is Clínica Santa María, a private hospital where my main focus is temporomandibular joint (TMJ) surgery—especially TMJ arthroscopy—as well as orthognathic surgery.

At the same time, I’m very involved in various AO CMF educational activities, a member of community development team for my region, and I teach in two different oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) graduate programs.

What do these roles mean to you?

I feel comfortable as a clinician and full of passion working in the specifics areas where I’m involved. At the same time, it means for me a high commitment to my patients and a deep satisfaction when I’m helping to improve their quality of life to some extent. On the other side, teaching is always satisfying because it allows me to stay up to date and in contact with new knowledge in my area, and to help students and residents progress and reach their own goals.

In relation to AO CMF activities, I always enjoy educational events, especially when I can share and learn from faculty colleagues and students. My new position on the AO CMF CDC has been a challenge and completely new learning opportunity for me; I feel lucky to be in a position to help other members in Latin America to have access to more and better educational opportunities and to be an integral part of our global community.