WHERE TO WATCH”The Doctors” episode featuring Chattanooga craniofacial surgeon Dr. Larry Sargent will air Wednesday, May 21 on WTVC, Channel 9 at at 10 a.m. ET.
Dr. Larry Sargent holds a 3D model of Layla Shook’s clover-shaped skull in his office. The model helped him decide how to proceed with Layla’s surgery, which took place when she was just 24 days old.
Layla before surgery.
Layla after surgery.
Dr. Larry Sargent and a team with the Tennessee Craniofacial Foundation perform an operation on Layla.
Dr. Larry Sargent shows two 3D models of Layla Shook’s skull at different stages. The one to the left is a model made from a scan of her clover-shaped skull just a few days after her birth. The one to the right is of the baby’s skull several months after reconstructive surgery.Peering into the ultrasound screen four months into pregnancy, parents can just begin to detect their little one’s tiny facial features. A little nose. Eye sockets. the curve of a lip, if you look closely enough.
But when first-time Ringgold, Ga., parents Brian and Lisa Shook saw their daughter on the screen four months in, they didn’t need a magnifying glass to see that something was wrong.
“You could see her skull wasn’t a round shape,” the mother remembers. “It was actually more like a clover.”
As the pregnancy progressed, the Shooks knew that their baby was going to need significant surgery. But it wasn’t until shortly after Baby Layla was born in 2011 – when reconstructive surgeon Dr. Larry Sargent visited them in the neonatal intensive care unit – that they realized just what they were in for.