Inducted in 2011
Physician; Surgeon; Humanitarian
Founder, Operation Smile

Induction Video

William P. Magee Jr, is a world- renowned plastic and craniofacial surgeon. While his technical expertise is unparalleled, he is perhaps better known for his humanitarian work with the medical charity that he and his wife, Kathleen Soracco Magee, founded in 1982: Operation Smile.

Born in 1944, William Magee is the second of the 12 children of William and Grace Magee. His siblings include Grace, Pat, Michael '65, Daniel, Jack, Kathy, Christopher '71, Mary, Sue, Stephen '75 and Annbeth. William Sr. was a family physician and Grace managed the Magee household full-time.

During his Hughes Hall years, Bill traveled from New Jersey each day via buses, trains and a bus again to arrive at the Rose Hill Campus. He enjoyed the school from the start.

“It was a great place to meet people and be with people. We had unique teachers and learned about the beauty of a Jesuit education."

A natural competitor, Magee played several sports at the Prep, including basketball, football and swimming, though he has claimed (with a smile) that his major extracurricular activity was attending jug.

Magee has stated that more than the math, Latin or Greek he was exposed to at the Prep, it was the philosophy of the school that prepared him for the next phase of his life. In his estimation, it is only in retrospect that a Prep student can understand the breadth of knowledge that his teachers infused into him. In his own words:

“As I reflect back, I can see that the Jesuits instilled in us the idea that each of us has to give back in some way.”

After graduating from Fordham Prep, Magee attended Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Maryland — the same place where over a century before, fellow Hall of Honor inductee John Hughes was working as a gardener and stonemason when he met Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton (Prep grandparent, Class of 1848 and then-future canonized saint) who would facilitate his entrance to the seminary. Magee then went on to dental school at the University of Maryland and was also earned a medical degree from George Washington University Medical School. He completed his surgical residency at the University of Virginia Medical School.

Magee was the recipient of a Hays-Fulbright Scholar Grant from the Franco-American Commission, which enabled him to study under Paul Tessier, widely regarded as The Father of Craniofacial Surgery. Magee continued his studies in Germany, Switzerland and Scotland. In 1978, he finished his residency in plastic surgery at Eastern Virginia Graduate School of Medicine

It was not, however, until he had an opportunity to go to the Philippines as a young surgeon that he found his life’s work. He and Kathleen were part of a medical mission to Naga City, where the team found that they were able to help only a fraction of the people who required correction of a cleft lip or palate. One grateful mother offered him a bunch of bananas in gratitude for trying to help her child, even though he was not even able to operate on her. Leaving the country with so much left undone was an emotionally wrenching experience. To quote Magee: “Emotion leads to action.”

Back home in Virginia, the Magees involved their friends in a grassroots funding effort to obtain medical supplies and surgical equipment and soon put together a volunteer team of their own to return to the Philippines. This time they were able to help 100 patients — more than twice as many as on their first trip. Again, however, many were turned away. In 1982, together with Kathleen, who had earned graduate degrees in nursing and clinical social work, Bill formally founded Operation Smile as a private, nonprofit, volunteer medical services organization. 

At the time of Magee's 2011 induction in the Prep Hall of Honor, Operation Smile had grown into an enterprise operating in 51 countries, and had already provided reconstructive surgery to more than 100,000 children and adolescents around the world who would otherwise have lived with the stigma, pain, social isolation and longterm health consequences of cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial abnormalities. As pointed out by the Magees, what began as an idea to help only a few children had grown into a network of volunteers and medical missions transforming  thousands of lives.  Operations Smile continues its mission to this day.

In addition to his work on the actual surgeries, Magee has also seen to the organization of  the Physicians Program at Operation Smile Headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. Through the program, thousands of health care professionals from around the world have been trained in advanced techniques of plastic and craniofacial surgery ensuring that the world’s children will continue to benefit from the inspiration of this true man for others.

The Magees have won numerous public service and humanitarian awards over the years, including the first $1 million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize in 1996, the 2001 Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for Exceptional Endeavors of Outstanding Moral and Humanitarian Value, and the Servants of Peace Award from the Vatican's representative to the United Nations in 1997.  In 1998, Magee received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and in 2009, Bill and Kathleen Magee were included on the list of America’s best leaders by the U.S. News and World Report. Other awards include the Irish Americans of the Year Award of by Irish America Magazine in 2006, the President’s Call to Service Award in 2007 presented by USAId and many, many others — including, interestingly enough, recognition in 2000 by the Guinness Book of World Records for "Most Reconstructive Surgery by a Traveling Team."

In addition to functioning as CEO of Operation Smile and maintaining a private practice in Norfolk, Magee has held and continues to hold academic appointments and directorships in various institutions such as Eastern Virginia Medical College and the Institute for Craniofacial and Plastic Surgery in the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters. 

William and Kathleen Magee, who were married in 1967,  have five children: Brigette, William III, Todd, Trevor and Kristie, all of whom have served on Operation Smile medical missions and have engaged in volunteer work for their parents' organization. The Magees are also proud grandparents many times over.

In the words of William P. Magee Jr:

Love is self-sacrifice.  It is the decision to make someone else’s problem your own.