Fourth-year Students Ignite Interest in Global Health

A motivational luncheon presentation was hosted by Extramural Programs on April 6. The luncheon was led by Assistant Director of Extramural Programs Kathy Held and featured testimonials from fourth-year DMD students who have traveled on an international elective externship in the last year. These students visited Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Panama, Nicaragua, and Mexico to provide oral health outreach in a wide variety of settings. They traveled with family members, friends, and in many cases people who were strangers at first, but became life-long friends by the end of the trip. Their patients were young and old and sat in lawn chairs, school desks, or lay on tables. Sometimes they had electricity, running water, and the necessary tools and sometimes they didn’t. Regardless, they always made the best of the situation and provided a high level of care to all of the underserved populations that they treated.

Their experiences—shared one after another—following a slide show of trip photos designed by Held—inspired the packed auditorium of third-year DMD and second-year AS students in attendance.

Student presenters included: Katy Bednar (Guatemala); Sarah Courtney (Honduras); Lucinda Barry and Melissa Lowry (Guatemala); Derrick Call (Haiti); Lauren Greco and Danielle Culp (Panama); Thomas O’Conner (Haiti); Tim Smith and Matt Kramer (Nicaragua); and John Keyes, Oshin Anjirghooli, and Dr. Frank Schiano (Mexico). Honored, but not in attendance for the presentations were Ben Pham and Betty Suh (Honduras), Alana Gilgurd and Nicholas Bacos (Honduras), Dee Gulis (Guatemala), Seth Caldron and Amit Patel (Haiti), and Kimberly Chan Ung and Vera Chernomordik (Mexico) .

Said Bednar, who traveled to Guatemala twice in the last year, “The trips were one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of dental school for me.”

Added Courtney, “People just need this help so badly. If you can fit it into your schedule during fourth-year, you should definitely do it. It’s an overall great experience.”

Barry and Lowry energized the attendees explaining, “Literally the three of us [Barry, Lowry, and Gulis] were at the chairs treating the patients, making the calls, and making things work with limited supplies.” Lowry continued, “The trip expanded my repertoire and helped me develop skills that I might not have the chance to otherwise develop in dental school.”

Call—a father of a young child himself—said, “My favorite day of the trip was when we visited an all-girls orphanage. We pulled up to the massive gates and saw two little girls pushing them open. As we set up our supplies the girls were peeking out at us curiously from all around the orphanage. Then all of a sudden they got together in a group and start singing us a song.” He continued, “We treated them all that day and they were very brave. And then we had the opportunity to just goof around, playing games and jumping rope with them. It was a really fun day.”

Associate Dean for Clinical Education Dr. John Guarente presented each student with an award for recognition of their service to the global health community. He also told them how proud the School of Dental Medicine community is of their hard work.

Photos are available on facebook and flickr.