GSDM Students Join Dentistry For All Effort in Guatemala
Earlier this Spring Paula Ancelson and Stephanie Trahan, both fourth-year DMD students, traveled to Guatemala for separate two-week trips with Dentistry For All. The mission of Dentistry For All, a Canadian non-profit, is to change lives through dental education, prevention, and corrective treatment. Directors Brad Krusky DMD 97, Shane Fisher, and Guatemala Director Rebecca Smith donate their services and expertise several weeks each year to those without access to care. Most of their trips are to Guatemala but they have also provided outreach in Nicaragua and the Philippines.
Trahan and Ancelson both joined larger groups of volunteers (between 15 to 18 people) once they arrived in Guatemala and each estimated that they treated between 80 and 100 patients. Dentistry For All travels around Guatemala providing outreach, so Trahan worked mainly in Antigua and El Remante—somewhat populated areas with a lot of tourists, while Ancelson worked in more rural areas including Guatemala City, Comitancillo, and Santa Isabella—a refugee camp.
Ancelson described how her group was fed home cooked meals by the locals in their adobe huts. “I was amazed at how welcoming the locals were and also how gracious and thankful they were for our help.”
They were both also impressed with how well funded the trip was, compared to others they had heard about. Ancelson said, “This mission had as much, if not better supplies than the Dental School. They are very well funded which is largely due to the fact that Brad donates 30 percent of his career to these missions.”
Despite their wealth of supplies and volunteers, the non-profit group is still fighting an uphill battle, traveling to areas where most people don’t have regular access to care. In many areas of Guatemala Coca-Cola is cheaper than water and many mothers transition from feeding their babies breast milk to Coca-Cola because the children need the calories it contains.
Trahan pointed out that though the work of Dentistry For All is excellent, there are still unmet oral health needs among the Guatemalan people, “I saw a great need for dentures in people, because many patients had so many teeth extracted they could barely chew. There was also an abundance of root tips visible from teeth that had rotted out.” She continued, “I was concerned about the lack of education among the population. Patients just wanted us to take care of the pain, they didn’t care about prevention or learning about how to maintain their teeth.”
Overall both students had an enjoyable time and learned a lot. They were full of colorful stories and recommendations for the Extramural Programs office upon their return, including some that might address the lack of oral health education.
Photos from their trips are available on flickr and facebook.