JoEllen Clark's main job as an intern for "Operation Smile" was logistics: booking lodging for the team members, lining up facilities and supplies, helping with the patient screening process: while 90 children were treated during her week in Romania, almost triple that number were turned away.   Junior Finds Big Profit In "Operation Smile" JoEllen Clark '00 peered at the baby's face, with its missing lip and gnarled mouth, and figured there was little to be done. Modern medicine-as practiced by the team of American doctors Clark traveled with to the Romanian hospital for a week of free corrective surgeries in the former Soviet bloc country-could work wonders, but not miracles. This baby, happily oblivious to her disfigurement, might get a better face, Clark thought. But certainly not one you could call normal. Then she watched the doctor work. "The doctor moved things around, pulled on this, pushed this....," Clark, a junior international studies major at Washington College,

recalled recently. "And she looked perfect." Perfect. Adults rarely look perfect, but babies often do. This baby didn't, until the doctors, nurses, administrators, volunteers and-this year, for the first time-a college intern from Operation Smile arrived in Romania for their weeklong mission of surgery. They treated 90 children for a range of disfigurements, from cleft palates to burned skin to heavy scarring, horrible marks of a troubled birth. Most of the problems would have been fixed without much effort in the United States, where health insurance and medical schools are plentiful. But in poor nations like Romania, the disfigurements often go untreated among the underclass. Operation Smile has sent squads of surgeons and medical supplies across the globe for the past 15 years to help children with disfiguring birth defects. More than 40,000 impoverished children have been spared the pain and humiliation of cleft lips, palates and other afflictions. Washington College is the first school to establish

an internship program with Operation Smile, and so JoEllen Clark this summer was the first college student to accompany Smile on its mission to Europe. It was an all-expenses paid adventure, thanks in large part to a grant by Washington College alumnus Dr. Richard E. Holstein '68, a pediatric dentist. Dr. Holstein helped Washington College create the intern slot, then let the school select the student. As an international studies major, Clark was hesitant to apply for the slot when her roommate handed her a brochure last year. "It seemed too medical," Clark said. The literature emphasized all students were welcome to apply, so Clark did. One acceptance letter later, Clark was heading for the Norfolk, VA, headquarters of Operation Smile. Once in Romania, Clark discovered that her training as an international studies major helped negotiate choppy cultural waters. "I think I saw how international relations applies to the real world," she said. When helping to run an Operation Smile mission, "you have to be aware of the dif

ferences in the cultures." Differences, yes. But Clark found many joys that transcended language barriers. Clark befriended a Romanian girl who was often in the hospital. The two chatted almost every day, Clark absorbing bits of local culture, and the girl practicing her English. When it came time to describe Operation Smile, Clark had some problems. "I was explaining to her that Operation Smile was charity-a non-profit organization," Clark recalled. "That was hard to explain, to someone not fluent in English." "At the end of the week, the girl came up to me and said, 'I have something to tell you. This isn't a non-profit organization.'" "I said, 'What do you mean?'" "And she said, 'You guys are getting the most amazing profit in the world. You're making all these people happy.''' Clark laughed. "Everyone kept saying that the profit is in the smiles, profit is in the smiles. And it's true." w