RSDM Goes Global with Annual Dental Missions

Students received these thank you gifts from pediatric patients in the Dominican village of La Romana.

RSDM's dental missions reach underserved patients in the U.S. and overseas, often in places where there are no dentists for many miles and where poverty prevents patients from buying necessities like a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Students, faculty and alumni embark on three annual missions over Spring Break. The trips are often transformative experience for participants, who gain an understanding of global healthcare inequities and cultural differences in attitudes toward oral health.  Patients also have their lives transformed by procedures that end pain and disfigurement. Others receive preventive care and oral health education.

Here is a roundup of Spring missions. A surgical mission to repair cleft palates and other conditions for patients in South Asia is often scheduled both in the fall and spring.  For more than a decade, students have also worked in an Arizona clinic, treating Native Americans.

Cheerful Heart Mission to Haiti and the Dominican Republic: Led by Dr. Pam Alberto, this mission has grown from a clinic on the border of two nations -- Haiti and the Dominican Republic-- to clinics in each country. It began in 2011, when the team treated 200 patients. This year, the group of 10, plus nurses from University Hospital,  treated 1,030 patients over five days and screened patients for hypertension and diabetes. Over time, they have seen the results of their work. Children who had sealants and other preventive care on earlier missions have remained cavity free and older residents have also benefited from preventive care and education.

Mission to La Romana, Dominican Republic: An RSDM team travels to the sugar cane fields of La Romana, a village where most of their patients are children from a local school. Many have parents who work in the fields and can't afford dental care, which is often inaccessible. This mission began three years ago a team of seven. They treated more than 100 patients, performing everything from fillings to root canals and extractions.

Smile Bangladesh: Oral surgeon Dr. Shahid Aziz organizes this mission, which travels twice a year to Bangladesh to perform cleft lip and cleft palate surgery. In the U.S., this surgery is commonly performed during infancy. But in Bangladesh, there is a severe shortage of qualified surgeons, so many people live into adulthood with the disfigurement. Founded in 2006, the mission has treated more than 1,000 patients, including 47 this year.