September 13, 2010

For the last 4 days, every single group member enjoyed the white beaches and clear waters of Roatan. This island is extremely beautiful and is providing all of us the break and fun we hoped to have during this trip.

Some of us decided to become certified scuba divers (Jennifer, Robert, Chad, Nader, Jessica, Jason, and Fonz). We were all certified yesterday after 4 dives and, for some of us, a grueling swimming test. :P.

Others relaxed/sunbathed on the beach, kayaked, built sand castles, karoaked, raced crabs, and snorkeled.

Unfortunately, good times always come to an end. Tomorrow we will be flying back to the United States. Everyone will surely miss this whole trip but hopefully we can remember it through our millions of pictures. Let's all come back next year! OR We must have Honduran reunion someday!!! <3

September 9, 2010

We woke up today at 4 am in the morning to catch our flights at 8:30 am from the airport at Tegucigalpa. Through the stressful 2.5 hour ride with crazy traffic in the city, we rolled into the airport at 8:05 am (25 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave) and hurried all of our luggage in to the check-in counter.

Here we parted with Alexis (our mission friend) and the Drs. (many of us were so rushed that we forgot to say goodbye! <3 )

The flights were short and after stopping in La Ceiba, we landed in Roatan. The weather was warm and humid, but it was very sunny out and we are happy to begin our vacation here.

We spent today swimming in the ocean, basking in the sun, kayaking, and playing Frisbee. We are really looking forward to the next 5 days here in the awesome condo we have right on the beach.

September 8, 2010

This morning we awoke to the best breakfast of all. Chad, Jennifer and Insoon prepared banana smoothies, Breakfast Delights® sandwiches, and ham.

Today was our last day in clinic, and we saw many more pedo patients from the local elementary school. Our skills have increased dramatically since we started here 6 days ago and we have become much more efficient at nearly all aspects of the clinic. In addition to several pedo extractions, Jessica was able to trace 3 sinus tracts in one child’s mouth to a massive infection in his left mandible. We also performed 2 more root canals (Robert and Dr. Arriola).

At the end of the day, some of the kids taught us their version of “duck, duck, goose” and gave us a good workout. Ruth and Dr. Arriola were interviewed on national TV by Sister Maria and all the group members said a few words on national TV.

We joined together for a few last group pictures in Guaimaca. Thank you ASDA for sponsoring us and giving us the chance to go on this trip!

During the evening, the students at the all-girl school presented us a wonderful card and told us:

Thank you so much for coming here and helping us. We will always remember you, and we hope that all of you will also remember us. Please come back soon!

They then sang and danced for us. We thoroughly enjoyed their presentation. ☺ In return, we showed them part of the slide show specially made by Dr. Jungman and Dr. Arriola. In the slide show, there were pictures from the beginning of the trip in the airport to traveling to Guiamaca to working in the clinic with such amicable patients. We will surely miss them!!

September 7, 2010

Today we had an amazing breakfast, put together by Robert, Karona and Nader (hash browns, Banana pancakes with banana toppings, and fresh fruit).

Today we were scheduled to see the pediatric patients from the elementary school that Chad, Carlo, and Nader screened on the first day. The children ranged from 5-7 years old and were the cutest kids we’ve seen. Some of them had advanced decay , but almost all of them were extremely cooperative with our procedures. This made the day run very smoothly. We made latex balloon gloves and decorated them with faces and designs to cheer up the kids and distract them while waiting or while receiving treatment. These kids made lasting impressions on us, and a few of us even considered going into pedo (pediatric dentistry).

We put finished 3 root canals on the same patient today (in the morning and afternoon) by Jessica, Fonz, and Greg. These were extremely beneficial for the patient because these teeth were 2 of the last ones remaining in the anterior of her mouth and were the abutments for her anterior extension partial denture.

September 5, 2010

We have worked for 3 days in the clinic and took a break today. In the morning, some of us attended the 9 o’clock mass where Father Craig and the Guaimacan people sang of the gospels. By 10:30 am, we took a trip to the local farm set up by Sister Maria and the various teachers at the school. The farm allows the students to learn about agriculture and bring back this critical knowledge to their families, who are farmers. We saw healthy plants bearing large tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, jalapenos, cashew fruit, papayas, etc. Sister Maria took some of the produce back to the mission for us to eat for dinner. It was delicious!

After lunch, the entire group attended mass in a small village in the mountains (La Nava). We had to drive up in the back of pick-up trucks on a long bumpy, winding road to reach this small, quaint church.  The view of Guaimaca from this church was absolutely amazing! The people were very grateful for us coming, and we even saw some of our patients. One of the villagers here shared with us that our presence and mission there in Guaimaca “animated her spirit” despite experiencing many great sadnesses and recent losses in her life. We were glad to bring happiness to the people of Guaimaca, and we hope we can help as many patients as possible in the next few days.

September 4, 2010

We found out last night that the city was doing construction on the electrical system, and we would be without power for most of the day. Fortunately, Dr. Patterson worked with locals and Sister Maria to procure a generator to power most of our equipment. We expected to do mostly extractions but were hopeful to get other work accomplished.

After the scrumptious french toast breakfast prepared by Jason, Nader, and Fonz, the power went out. Soon afterwards we also found out that electricity controls the pump for the well, and we would be without running water for most of the day as well. We were relatively efficient with the generator in the beginning with 4 fully functional chairs and 1 chair for extractions. Unfortunately, the generator could not supply enough power, and we were reduced to 3 chairs. The generator died about an hour after we started.

Throughout the day, the generator continued to work sporadically. This meant restorative treatment often had to be stopped in the middle of the procedure. The patients were very understanding about our situation and patiently waited for the generator to start again. The portable NOMAD xray unit that we have on loan came in very handy and enabled us to take xrays despite the power outage.

Dr. Jungman and Dr. Arriola were critical in helping with the extractions that we had at this time, most of which were EXTREMELY difficult. The favored instrument of the day was the bone chisel and mallet. One of the patients had 6 teeth extracted including 4 of her upper anteriors in the preparation for a partial denture.

We ended clinic early around 5 pm to join the locals for a game of "futbol" organized by Alexis (one of our new mission friends). We played a 6 vs. 6 game at the local indoor soccer field. Chad, Nader, Fonz, Jason, Robert, Greg, and Carlo put up a good fight, leading the game 4 to 2...yet, the locals beat them 15 to 9.

While we were playing soccer, the mission friends including Sister Maria prepared us an excellent dinner of lasagna (both meat and vegetarian) and garlic bread. It was well received after the long soccer game.Yum, yum!

September 3, 2010

We started another clinic day with a delicious pancake breakfast made by Chad, Jennifer, and Karona. Clinic began promptly at 8:30 and was very productive from beginning to end. (about 6:30pm)

We saw 19 patients total today with a new variety of cases. Robert and Chad both individually performed their first patient root canals on a premolar and an incisor respectively. These procedures were performed very efficiently under the direct supervision and assistance of Dr. Arriola. Nader was able to save a posterior tooth that seemed to be doomed for extraction, by placing a very large restoration. Two of our patients received extensive care, with 4 extractions each. Dr. Jungman was instrumental in overseeing and assisting the extraction cases (which were the first extractions done by most of the students). Drs. Jungman and Patterson collaborated on a patient who presented with TMJ (Jaw joint) pain and dysfunction.

Dr. Patterson supervised and was incredible with troubleshooting machines that were malfunctioning to get them up and running again. He even made a couple trips to the hardware store, and was able to procure a heat source for the root canal procedures. We now have 5 fully functional restorative chairs in the clinic!

Overall, today ran much more smoothly and we had a better handle on time. Not only are we starting to be more comfortable in the clinical environment but we are also getting familiar with one another. Tonight, Dr. Arriola arranged a grand mafia event for our entire group. We (Jennifer and Robert) planned to win, but unfortunately we were BOTH out in the second round!

September 2, 2010

My name is Robert Jungman, and I am a third year at UCLA School of Dentistry. Jennifer Yau, a second year, and I will be updating this blog on our dental mission trip to Guaimaca this September (2010).

In our group of 16, we have 3 dentists, Dr. Jungman (San Diego Private Practice), Dr. Arriola (Temecula Private Practice), and Dr. Patterson (San Leandro Private Practice), and 13 UCLA dental students. They include Nader Nasseri (4th year), Alphonse Ramos (3rd year), Chad Green (3rd year), Greg Shvartsman (3rd year), Jessica Lee (3rd year), Robert Jungman (3rd year), and the following 2nd years: Jennifer Yau, Insoon Chang, Ruth Alvarez, Puja Patel, Giancarlo Santos, Karona Tum, and Jason Hsieh.

We all met at the airport in Los Angeles for our 1:30 am flight (morning of September 1st) on our way to El Salvador and then transferred to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Father Craig and Sister Martha met us at the airport with “El Evangelizador,” the mission’s bus. Because of the massive rains in the area, there were sinkholes in the road on the way back to the mission. We decided to take a detour through the Valley of Angels, where we ate lunch and shopped for souvenirs. The Valley scenery was breathtaking!

By late afternoon, we arrived at the mission, greeted by the various mission friends. We immediately began setting up the clinic in preparation for the next day. Unfortunately, many of our bags got wet from the heavy tropical rains on the way back to the mission. A couple of the cardboard boxes of supplies literally fell apart when unloading them from bus.

On Thursday the 2nd, the clinic opened for our first patients. Many of the second years experienced their first injections and their first operative preparations on live patients. The third years also experienced new things such as very large fillings, extractions, and treatment planning. We also sent a contingent of students (Nader, Chad and Carlo) to an elementary school to screen some of the students there for treatment in our clinic. While they were screening, we treated girls from the mission’s boarding school, who were screened by the students from the June trip. We realized the considerable amount of dental decay that we will have to treat for each patient.

Dr. Patterson did a wonderful job in helping set-up the clinic equipment including the suction units, air compressors, and handpiece attachments. We had 4 chairs plumbed with suction and air pressure, which allowed us to see 17 patients. Most patients needed numerous and extensive restorations with a few patients who needed extractions.

After dinner, our group elected to visit the local supermarket for sodas where we saw the girls from the mission’s boarding school come out of 7 o’clock mass. We joined them back at their school where we received a school tour and learned more about the mission through Sister Martha.

Ever since coming to the mission, we have found the people to be generous and kind. They did an excellent job housing and feeding us, and we are really appreciative. We look forward to our next few days of providing clinical services and helping as many people as we can.

June 19-24, 2010: ROATAN!!

On Saturday June 19, we left the mission at 4:45am to catch our 8:30am flight to Roatan island! Now that all of the hard work is over, it is time for us all to relax and have a short vacation before returning home. We arrived in Roatan a little after 12pm and immediately checked into our large beach house and 3 cabanas. Eleven students stayed in the beach house while Dr. Patterson, Jane and Hector, and Dr. Patel and Sahil had their own private cabanas.

While we were there, 9 people in our group got SCUBA certified! Congratulations to Brittany, Alex, Jeesoo, Golnaz, Shiva, Lila, Anita, Dr. Patel, and Sahil. In addition, Matt got his Advanced Open Water Certification and Dr. Patterson and I dove a number of times in some of the most beautiful dive sites in the world.

Besides SCUBA diving, other members of our group went on Glass Bottom Boat Tours, zip lining through the jungle, snorkeling, and more! We ate good food, spent quality time with each other and truly enjoyed having the time off from school and work.

Thank you to everybody who followed the blog over the past two weeks! I hope you all enjoyed traveling with us on our journey to Guaimaca and Roatan.

If you would like more information about our trip please contact me at hondurasdentalmission@gmail.com. 

We will be posting all of our photos online and when the website is ready, I will post the link here for you all to enjoy!

Thanks again for reading! Check back around September 1st for updates from the September Mission Team in Guaimaca!

Stephanie

Friday June 18 Clinic Day 5

We finally made it to the end of the week! By now, we have all the kinks worked out in terms of logistics in the clinic and things are running very smoothly. We purposely scheduled less patients today knowing that we had a significant amount of clean-up ahead of us before departing at 4:30am the next day for our flight to Roatan. 

We began the day with a quick trip to the mission's organic farm as a mini get away from the clinic. Sister Marta showed us all of the different kinds of food that they grow such as pineapple plants, mango trees, cucumbers, bananas, orchids and more! They also have a special way of making fertilizer that they are trying to get patented world-wide. We saw their small corn mill that locals walk sometimes over 2 hours to get to in order to mill their corn for the week. The idea is that the farm will be able to fund the mission in the future and be the "lungs of Guaimaca" due to all of the deforesting that is currently going on in and around their city. In addition to the farm, they have built a small science lab for the students at the mission's girls' school. In the lab, they have the ONLY microscope in all of Guaimaca. Those girls are extremely lucky to be able to utilize such an amazing tool and be able to learn agricultural skills on the farm. Before heading back to the clinic, we got to hike through the farm and enjoy the outdoors for the first time this week!

 

When we returned from the farm around 8:30am, the mission staff was kind enough to cook us breakfast while we were out. Since patients had scheduled and lining up since 8am, we had to eat quickly and get into clinic. Right around 9am, the power company decided to shut off the power. Without electricity, we had no chance of running the clinic and since the mission's water supply runs on an electric pump, we also were without water. With patients already in the chairs, we had to improvise and attempt to entertain them while we waited for the power to return. There was the cutest little girl who needed an extraction and a filling. During the power outage, we talked about Hannah Montana and High School Musical and I even taught her some English. She was adorable and one of the best patients we had all week. Sister Maria phoned the electric company and asked them when the power would come back on. Eventually, around 9:45am we were back up and running, but the power surge blew out the water pump and we would be without water until we left the next day. Fortunately, there was a lot of 5-gallon drinking jugs around for us to use in the clinic and for ourselves.

With the power outage behind us, we continued with the last few patients for the week. We only had about 30 patients scheduled and many of them were follow ups from previous treatments earlier in the week. Hector, Hetal and Silpa had some overflow root canal patients that they had to finish. Hector and Anita worked on one patient's two root canals for half of Thursday and almost all of Friday morning. She is a student at the mission's school and had to leave by 1pm to catch her bus back to her small village in the mountains. Lucky for her, her front two teeth were saved from extraction!

After a long week's work, it was finally time to start packing everything up and organizing all of the instruments and supplies for the next group in September. Dr. Patterson chronicled how to assemble all of the dental units and compressors. We took pictures of how the clinic should be set up, where dirty and clean instruments are kept, how to run the autoclave and x-ray developer and sorted the instruments according to restorative, perio and prophy, and extraction. We tried to make everything as easy as possible for the September team because they will only have a half day to set up! After all was said and done and we returned to the dorms for dinner, we couldn't believe how much we were able to accomplish in 5 days. In total, we officially treated 115 patients in the clinic, fluoridated, screened and taught Good Oral Health Practice classes to 65 girls from the mission's school, and traveled to a remote village, screened, fluoridated and taught OHI to over 100 people. I think that is an extremely successful mission for our first time. I can only imagine how much better and more sophisticated our clinic in Guaimaca will be with each successive trip. I am so excited to see what the September group is going to be able to do and how many people they are going to be able to help. The people of Guaimaca, Honduras are forever grateful for everything we were able to do on this trip and cannot wait to welcome the next group that is coming.


I would like to especially thank the St. Joan of Arc Men's Group in San Ramon, CA for their unbelievable monetary, spiritual and encouraging support for our mission. Your generosity made this mission an absolute success and I cannot personally thank you all enough for what you were able to contribute.

Also, thank you to all of the dentists, companies, friends and families that contributed to our mission in one way or another. The unprecedented support that we received from you all allowed us to help the most needy people of Honduras. Our mission team is forever grateful for the life-changing experience that we had in Guaimaca and I know that many of us are eager to return on one of the upcoming trips!

Stephanie

Thursday June 17 Clinic Day 4

Before beginning our extremely busy day, Honduras played their first World Cup game at 5:30am against Chile. Many of us got up to watch the game with some of the locals at the Mission's Rectory. Father Craig provided some breakfast cakes, coffee, and fruit for us to snack on while we watched the game. Unfortunately they lost 1-0, but fortunately for us, that meant we had patients lining up at 8am.

For the past day, Jeesoo had been suffering from a very terrible bug bite on his right ankle. His ankle was extremely swollen, painful and red. He could not walk on it and the inflammation was not getting better even with the strongest antibiotics the clinic had. Sister Maria began to worry about the pain and inflammation and decided to send pictures to an ER doctor in Tegucigalpa. The doctor suggested that he come in to get it looked at. So, Jeesoo and Alex ventured off to Tegucigalpa with some of the mission staff. He ended up staying in the hospital for 2 nights until the doctor agreed to release him. He is extremely thankful for all of the medical care that he received in the city and for the fact that he had a TV in his room with all of the World Cup games. He made it to Roatan a day late and is now finishing up his SCUBA certification. We are all so happy to have him back and well.

After a rough morning, the day began with 32 patients scheduled for extractions and another 10-15 for restorations. However, these extraction patients were not your typical primary teeth...these were root tips, first and second molars with very little crowns left, and removing peoples' last remaining teeth in order to make them edentulous. We purposely scheduled all of these patients today knowing that the two local dentists from Honduras and their team of prosthedontic residents would be visiting the clinic and offering their assistance in exchange for a presentation on TADs (temporary anchorage devices) by our very own Dr. Patterson. Sister Maria first put me in touch with Dr. Corrales when I began planning the trip back in January. He and his wife (also a dentist) were instrumental in getting the mission set up as they were our eyes and ears in Honduras and at the clinic. When we arrived on Saturday, we realized that we were missing a couple of supplies that we needed for root canals. Dr. Corrales had the items ready by Tuesday and had them sent back to the clinic with one of the sisters. It was really cool to talk with all of the residents and the two dentists about what dentistry is like in Honduras and how they think oral health education can be improved in the country. From chatting with all of them, we decided that it would be awesome if we could create a short 10-15 min video describing some good oral hygiene practices and how to take care of your teeth at home. In addition, the video would include some diet guidelines for children such as not drinking sodas before bed, brushing kids' teeth regularly, and not allowing them to snack on sugar cane. Hopefully this summer some of us students can put this video together and have it playing in the waiting room for patients while they wait for their appointments.

Some of the patients that we saw in the village on Tuesday came to our clinic today because their situations were at the stage of emergency. Most of them were children and Dr. Patel was able to see and treat all of them. In one of the cases, a young man in his early 20's had a cracked front tooth. It had split right down the vertical axis and when we were at the village, we could actually move one half of the tooth. He came today and we had to unfortuenately extract the tooth. But, at least we were able to help him by eliminating the pain that tooth caused him.

In addition to all the patients we had scheduled for the day, 3 or 4 of us taught yet another oral health class to the remaining 35 girls from the mission's girls' school. We provided fluoride, toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss to all of the girls and did a preliminary screening for each of them. The situation was much the same as it was with the other groups of girls and I really hope that the September trip will be able to focus a lot of their time on helping these girls back towards oral health.  

As the day came to an end around 7:30pm, we all headed back to the dorms hungry for dinner. At 8pm, the entire girls' school came over for a presentation to thank all of us for the work we were doing and for coming to Guaimaca to visit them. They performed 5 or 6 traditional Honduran dances in traditional Honduran clothing. It was so much fun to watch them dance! After they finished, they made all of us get up and learn a few of the dances with them. They laughed and laughed as many of us had a difficult time with the footwork. It was awesome to just hang out with the girls, play around a little bit and learn some new moves. After learning their dances, they asked us to teach them something that we do in the US. All we could come up with that we all knew was the Macarena. Hector sang while we all danced for the girls. Then we made all 60 of them come up and dance with us. It was awesome!! After all the festivities were over, they hugged each and everyone of us goodbye and thanked us for everything we were doing for them, their families and their city. That night made all of the hard work completely worth it.