Israeli doctors use 3D printing to rebuild injured Syrian man's face

War-torn regions are generally home to the absolute worst humanity has to offer, but sometimes bring forth heartwarming acts of human kindness as well. That’s exactly what’s going on at the Israeli-Syrian border, where Israeli doctors are doing everything they can to help the Syrian victims of the countless atrocities taking place in their country, even going as far as producing very expensive 3D printed implants to help them.

For while Syria is very far away from most of our beds, it is just around the corner for Israel. As the BBC recently revealed, as least 1500 Syrians have travelled to Israel to receive medical treatment. While this doesn’t sound too weird – people flee from war zones all the time – something of an unofficial state of war has existed between these two countries since the Six-Day-War between Israel and its surrounding Arab countries in 1967. Even today, there is something of a no-man’s-land between the two nations, and especially Syrian propaganda is unrelenting in its attacks on Israel.

And yet, wounded Syrians are finding their way to Israel in increasing numbers. While not exactly known how the process works, wounded Syrians find their way to the border on the Golan Heights, and somehow end up in the hands of Israeli soldiers who transport them to hospitals – most of them go to Haifa.

Recently, that exact trip was made by an unconscious 23-year-old called Mohammed, a farmer from Deraa – a hotbed of any Assad-protests. While his identity has purposefully been kept hidden – not many Syrians will approve of someone being helped by the Israeli’s – he arrived in Haifa with a terrible injury: a projectile from a Syrian jet fighter had completely shattered his jaw, leaving his face a bloody mixture of destroyed tissue.

Unable to eat or drink, he was brought to Israel in November 2014. Fortunately for him, one of the hospital’s maxillofacial surgeons, Dr Yoav Leiser, had just returned from a fellowship in Germany, where he studied Patient Specific Implants (PSIs) for eye sockets, jaws, and cheek bones, relying on titanium manufacturing and 3D printing. Leiser set to work on Mohammed’s horrible disfigurement, and developed a 3D printed jaw replacement that quickly put the young man on a road to recovery.