Dr. Peter Adamson is the recipient of the 2024 Teasdale-Corti Humanitarian Award.

World-renowned facial plastic surgeon Peter A. Adamson, OOnt, MD, FRCSC, created and then led the Division of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the University of Toronto for 10 years. While his professional leadership, contributions to his speciality and commitment to mentorship are lauded across his field, Dr. Adamson is perhaps best known and revered for his humanitarian work through the Face the Future Foundation, which he founded in 1996 and continues to lead. 

Face the Future provides reconstructive surgery for systemically marginalized people in countries lacking these services – not only providing treatment, but also building local sustainability. The foundation trains local surgeons, nurses and anaesthetists in the necessary procedures. From modest beginnings, today the foundation consistently leads missions to Ukraine, Nepal, Rwanda, Ethiopia and other countries across the world. 

Dr. Adamson says the same “general desire to be involved, engaged, give back and help others” that attracted him to medicine led him to establish Face the Future. And just as his chosen field is highly challenging, the foundation’s work is often complex. 

Challenging missions

“These are not simple one-week mission trips,” says fellow facial plastic surgeon Jamil Asaria, MD, FRCSC. “They are highly organized missions with contributing surgeons who have great specialization in the fields of otolaryngology, oral surgery, plastic surgery, oculoplastic surgery and anesthesia. The quality of care that they deliver, and the consistency of their contributions is remarkable.”

Some Face the Future missions present risks. “The recent mission to an active war zone in Ukraine, is but one example of Dr. Adamson making truly exceptional sacrifices while exposing himself to personal risk,” says Ian J. Witterick, MD, FRCSC, surgeon-in-chief at Sinai Health. 

The foundation has led more than 50 missions over its 27 years of service, providing surgeries to 2,000 patients. It has provided hands-on training to over 125 surgeons and training through seminars and academic programs to over 1,000. Hundreds of nurses and anesthesiologists have also received hands-on and academic instruction. 

Life-changing results 

“We think so highly of these humanitarian missions that our department funds our trainees to travel with Dr. Adamson to learn what it means to help those less fortunate and hopefully inspire them to do similar work in the future,” says Dr. Witterick. “Trainees returning from these visits describe it as ‘life transforming.”’

The missions have also provided equipment, instruments, supplies and professional services to enable more reconstructive surgery within the partner countries. 

Finding the right people

In the early years, modest fundraising efforts sustained Face the Future. “Mostly it came from having dinner parties with my friends and saying, ‘Please bring money,’” says Dr. Adamson. Fundraising efforts “are a little more sophisticated now.” 

He says finding the right people to take part is key to the foundation’s success. “I really look to find good people who want to do humanitarian work.”

One of those people is fellow University of Toronto facial plastic surgeon Andres Gantous, MD, FRCSC, the foundation’s mission director to Rwanda since 2023. Of the incredible impact the organization has had in that country, he says: “From having a single plastic surgeon servicing a population of 13 million, they have been able to establish a residency program and graduate their first three locally trained plastic surgeons helping to deliver much needed care.”

“He is the most professional and ethical individual I have ever met,” says Dr. Witterick of Dr. Adamson. “When I talk to medical students, residents and fellows about professionalism, I use Dr. Adamson as the gold standard.”

Dr. Adamson’s tremendous contributions to his specialty also include past roles as president of both the American Academy and American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and his leadership in the development of the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He has trained and mentored hundreds of medical students, residents, clinical fellows and colleagues in Canada and around the world. 

Impactful mentors in Dr. Adamson’s own journey in medicine include the famed Charles Best.

“I go back long enough that in my first year of biology and medicine at the University of Toronto, one of my mentors was Dr. Best, who co-discovered insulin. I actually had a couple of one-hour sessions with him … At the University of Toronto, we've had so many marvellous physicians and surgeons.”

For Dr. Adamson, the most meaningful impact of the Face the Future Foundation is training local staff to sustain its work. 

“The surgeon or nurse that we train, they're going to help train others and we won't ever see the ultimate impact,” he says. “But we know it will continue to grow well into the future.”