I have had the privilege of joining two world-class groups of individuals who serve two very different populations in need of medical and dental services. I’d like to share my experience and hope that you contribute to missions/projects close to you here in the US or abroad to make a tremendous difference. I love the projects I joined several years ago as they were non-denominational, not attached to any religious organization, truly keeping humans first.
Project 1: Project Angkor – Cambodia
Cambodia is a beautiful developing country in Indo-China Southeast Asia. Knowing the history during Pol Pot’s time and the unspeakable atrocities Khmer people went through drew me close to this project. Project Angkor is a medical/dental mission started by a group of Cambodian families in Southern California. Every year in the fall, a group of volunteer doctors, dentists, dental hygienists, dental assistants, medical assistants, nurses, students and other professionals from different fields make this journey to a pre-selected very remote area in the heart of Cambodia and render services from dental treatments, medical services, pharmacies, providing eye wear to prosthetic limbs. Local medical students volunteer with this project and they also assist in language interpretation. All medical, dental equipment including portable X-ray machines and medications are collected and transported from the US to Cambodia. We make lifelong special friends and enjoy the culture. Our next mission is in December of 2019.
Project 2: Bridge 2 Aid – Tanzania, East Africa
Bridge 2 Aid is a very special program organized by the British with a very different twist than Project Angkor. I love this program since my great grandfather was a doctor employed by the British back in the 1920's and my mother was born and raised here in Tanzania. I participate in this mission in their honor. Most dental missions around the world are rendering dental services consisting of mainly extractions and some restorative work. This unique project is a teaching program to make a long-lasting difference. This is in collaboration with the Government of Tanzania. We select a group of college students from different tribes and in eight days train them in dental emergencies for the local remote population. They learn dental procedures, head and neck anatomy, recognizing adult/deciduous dentition, administering local anesthetics safely, extractions, incision and drainage, sterilization, oral cancer screening and when to refer a patient to the District Dental Officer. They are all calibrated and at the end of intense training, a practical and written exam is conducted. Upon graduation, each candidate is given a set of dental instruments and a pressure cooker for sterilization. Each candidate then takes care of ten villages. They are then government paid employees and are given the title of Clinical Officer (CO). They report monthly to a District Dental Officer (DDO) who is the dentist in charge. Tanzania has a population of 60 million and has only one dental school. The graduating dentists often never go to these remote areas. Follow up on each candidate is done on a yearly basis through Bridge 2 Aid officials. Both the projects are very well thought out and I plan to be involved. I encourage our dental professionals to get involved in any projects local or abroad and make a difference. We are very fortunate to be in this position. My folks were not of extreme wealth but they sure gave me two gifts, which I am passing on to my son; the gift of diversity and the gift of education. Looking beyond man-made boundaries on the planet will always aspire me to be a global citizen and try to make a difference in any small way that I can.
For further interest and information on both projects, I can be contacted at: [email protected]