Dentaltown May 2017 - 66

CITE SOLEIL,
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI
Dr. Mithila Sharma of Danville, Illinois,
was one of 11 Aspen Dental volunteers
who traveled to Haiti last November
to provide oral care to more than 600
people. Sharma says the experience
gave her a new perspective: "We made
a denture for a patient who had been
missing most of her teeth for a very long
time and was in a lot of pain. Seeing her
smile after getting the dentures made
all of us tear up. ... This experience
reassured my belief in humanity and
always trying to do good for others."

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

WHITE HOUSE, JAMAICA
For more than five years, the team at Drew Beaty Family
and Cosmetic Dentistry in Federal Way, Washington, has
traveled to Jamaica on a dental mission trip organized
by the Great Shape! organization. During each weeklong
trip, doctors, hygienists, assistants and other staffers use
donated dental supplies to provide dental care to thousands
of Jamaicans. Recently, the organization added two weeks
in neighboring St. Lucia. (Pictured: hygienist Lorieann
McDonough with a patient in November 2016.)

In March, while Dr. Michael J. Landry spent a week in the Dominican Republic
providing free dentistry to many Haitian refugees who live in sugar cane work
camps known as "Bateyes," he and his team members from Consultants in
Dental Aesthetics in Houston performed everything from fluoride treatments to
cosmetic work. This patient, whose teeth had been rotted by sugar cane, cried
and hugged
Landry after
he saw the
cosmetic
work the
dentist had
performed.

PALMARITO,
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

CIEN FUEGOS, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
In January 2017 the Productive Dentist Academy teamed with
the Barnabas Task organization to provide dental care to families
in Cien Fuegos. Over four days, 25 volunteers at two clinics saw
504 patients for cleanings, fillings and extractions. Dr. Bruce
Baird of Granbury Dental Center in Texas performed extractions,
and Dr. David Diehl and dental assistants Bekka Bickley and Liz
Zimmerman of Dupont Family Dentistry in Fort Wayne, Indiana,
placed fillings. Hygienists Patti Sooy of Cheney, Washington, and
Julie Crismore from Fort Wayne provided preventive care, and
Cynthia Baird kept instruments sterile. At one point the clinic lost
power, so Baird moved his extraction patients outside for better
light and kept working.

66

MAY 2017 // dentaltown.com

The first year that Dr. Carl Ern and
his team members from Putnam
Dental Associates in Brewster, New
York, traveled to Palmarito to perform
volunteer dental work, they could do
only extractions and used church pews
as dental chairs and cement blocks as
stools. (Pictured above, from left to right: Ern, a patient whose upper central
incisor had to be extracted, the patient's father, assistant Jennifer Nieves,
a local interpreter and hygienist Toni Viau.) By their most recent trip Ern's
team had raised enough money to buy a portable dental unit, and was able
to perform about half fillings, half
extractions. They still needed to
seat patients in pool lounge chairs
and use school chairs as stools. Their
next goal: a portable X-ray machine.
(Pictured, left to right: Joanne
Colombo, Nieves and Ern.)
[Editor's note: For this and other
work, Ern was awarded the 2017
Dr. Richard G. Spolzine Access to Care
Humanitarian Award by the Ninth
District Dental Association.]
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown May 2017
