science

Smile Train

Smile Train is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Smile Train rather than just read about it. In short: Smile Train is a nonprofit organization and charity providing corrective surgery for children with cleft lips and palates. Headquartered in New York City and founded in 1999, Smile Train provides free corrective cleft surgery in 87 countries, along with training local doctors and providing hospital funding for the procedures.

Key takeaways

Smile Train belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Smile Train to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Smile Train from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Smile Train is a nonprofit organization and charity providing corrective surgery for children with cleft lips and palates. Headquartered in New York City and founded in 1999, Smile Train provides free corrective cleft surgery in 87 countries, along with training local doctors and providing hospital funding for the procedures.

History Smile Train was created in 1998 by Brian Mullaney and Charles Wang, who had previously worked with Operation Smile. They felt the most efficient way to provide cleft surgery was to train and support local doctors rather than to fly in Western doctors to provide surgeries in poor, developing countries. Local doctors would also be able to provide care year-round rather than the limited engagements of the "mission-based" model. In 1999, Smile Train approached Court B. Cutting of New York University's Virtual Research Laboratory to create training videos, which could be used to train local doctors on how to perform advanced cleft surgery techniques. The 3D models used in the videos were based on the CT scan of two Chinese patients. Smile Train distributes the DVDs to local doctors worldwide. The DVDs are available in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. In 1999, Smile Train began providing corrective surgeries in China. The charity worked with the then-US President George H. W. Bush and CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin, in the planning of Smile Train's first operation in China. Smile Train began working in India in 2000. In 2011, Aishwarya Rai, became Smile Train's first goodwill ambassador. As of 2025, Telugu actress Pavani Gangireddy is the new goodwill ambassador of Smile Train India.

Early recognition and criticism In a 2008 New York Times article, economist Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame indicated that the organization's model and its technological innovations "likely make Smile Train one of the most productive charities, dollar for deed, in the world." In 2009, the documentary Smile Pinki, which was sponsored by Smile Train and directed by Megan Mylan, won the 2008 Oscar for Best Documentary (Short Subject). The film shows the story of a poor girl in rural India whose life is transformed when she receives free surgery to correct her cleft lip. Smile Train worked with the Scottish charity KidsOR to revamp 30 operating theatres in Africa. This encompassed three in Nigeria, including in Kano, revamping an operating theatre there in the city's Armed Forces Specialist Hospital in 2022. In 2008, CharityWatch criticized then-president Brian Mullaney's $420,209 salary and questioned the 2007 company's tax form, which said Mullaney's salary came from temporary restricted funds designed to go toward overhead. In 2009, Givewell could not assess the impact of Smile Train's activities based on the charity's 2008 tax form and other publicly accessible information. Mullaney departed the charity in 2012.

Further reading "Smile Train Stories - The Shorty Awards". shortyawards.com.

See also List of cleft lip and palate organisations List of non-governmental organizations in the People's Republic of China

External links Official website

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Smile Train

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Smile Train claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Smile Train before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Smile Train ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Smile Train

In research: Smile Train appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Smile Train in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Smile Train is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1999 establishments in New York (state), American organizations established in 1999, Charities based in New York City, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Smile Train outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Smile Train in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Smile Train means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Smile Train out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Smile Train in simple terms?

Why does Smile Train matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Smile Train?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Smile Train.