After spending a week in a new location for me, Nicaragua, I now count my blessings everyday.  In the past, I’ve made a few trips to our neighbors down south in Central America for medical/dental missions but I saw and sensed more poverty in this country than any other I’ve worked in.

 

Indeed, this was a special trip for two reasons. One, it was my first “dental only” mission trip. It’s always been a medical mission with a combo of physicians, nurses, and dentists. This was different, only dental, which are always the hardest workers of the bunch doing both restorative and exodontias. The physicians and nurses will be the first to tell you this!

 

The second reason this was a special trip is the fact that I was able to work with eleven dental students from the Baylor School of Dentistry thanks to a former Austin dentist, Dr. Mike McWatters, who now is a professor at the school. What a joy it was to be around such enthusiasm and excitement in their love of dentistry! At the beginning, you might say that much of their experience (juniors and seniors) was at the “practice level”. But I can honestly say I was very impressed with their knowledge and skills and by weeks end they had become a very confident group of future dentists. There were very few times they needed my assistance. It was truly a win-win situation for both the Nicaraguans and the students.

 

On our last night together the students and I visited about the need to continue to serve the very poorest of the poor and never forget our obligation to give our time and talents to the less fortunate. Their responses were overwhelming, “we’re all in!” Now I know eleven more passionate people in our profession that will have their hands up when they are called to serve.

 

Did you know that 75% of professionals that do medical mission work will repeat again and again? Did you also know that it is twice as difficult to recruit dentists for mission trips (for the first time) than physicians? These physicians generally say, “I feel obligated to serve the poor”. We dentists do volunteer a lot and have many opportunities to serve in our own city, county and state, and in neighboring Mexico, Central America, etc. We have T-MOM’s, charity clinics, and mobile dental vans to work at.

 

Many say we want to be more equal with the physicians, but if our volunteer response level is half that of our MD friends will this equality ever be met? I ask, what is our obligation as dentists?

 

Wayne Radwanski, DDS

CADS President 2008-09

 

 

Baylor Dental Students in Nicaragua 2008