Donald Laub

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Donald R. Laub, Sr., M.D. (born January 1, 1935 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is a plastic surgeon. His undergraduate studies were at Marquette University, and he received an M.D. from Marquette Medical School in 1960. He was chief of Plastic Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine from 1968 to 1980, before entering private practice.

Laub had been inspired by Antonio, a 13 year-old boy who had come to Stanford University Medical Center from his home in Mexicali, Mexico to receive surgery to repair his cleft lip and palate. Upon Antonio's return to Mexico, he started school and performed very well. Excited about Antonio's success and the meaningful changes in his life, Laub traveled to Mexicali, where he saw a seemingly endless lineup of children with disabling deformities, many of which were surgically correctable. He became determined to find a means of helping these children, and set about establishing a program designed to provide surgeries regularly in a charity hospital in Mexicali. He realized that many children outside of Mexico needed reconstructive plastic surgery as well, and began organizing surgical volunteer trips to other parts of Latin America, and eventually to Asia and Africa as well. In 1969 he founded Interplast, the first international humanitarian organization to provide free reconstructive surgery from volunteer teams of medical professionals to sites across the developing world. As of 2005, Interplast has provided over 60,000 operations for those in need.