This winter I had the privilege of leading a medical team in organizing a medical clinic in North India. India is a country of great poverty. Many people live on less than $1.25 a day! On top of that there is a great shortage of doctors. In fact there is only one doctor for every five million people. Clearly, this all adds up to a lot of people going without much needed medical and dental care. During our clinic, we were able to provide free care and hygiene items to 474 patients with a wide variety of needs. I was so thankful God allowed me to be a part of this!
The clinic could not have been so successful, however, without the many generous donors such as the Henry Schein Cares Foundation! One of the most difficult aspects of the trip is stretching the funds to get all the needed supplies. The Henry Schein Cares Foundation greatly eased that burden by supplying floss, toothbrushes, and toothpastes as well as pediatric fluoride varnish kits. With these supplies we were able to hand out dental hygiene kits to our patients and educate them on proper brushing and flossing.
Dental disease is a major worldwide health problem and has been linked with other major problems such as diabetes and heart disease. In other words, our oral health plays a significant role in our overall health. Parental education and fluoride varnishes such as those donated help prevent early dental carries and aggressive tooth decay in young children. Providing dental hygiene education and materials is one of the highest impact services we can provide with a long lasting effect. God really blessed us and the people of India with this generous donation. Thank you Henry Schein Cares Foundation!
Meeting our clients needs during a mobile community outreach event!
Clackamas County Access to Dental Care_Mobile Dental Van_2013_Video
Making 3 trips each year through Common Hope to Guatemala, this first trip of the year was again a successful story. I had the company of 9 senior dental students from the University of Minnesota Dental School for 4 days of volunteering. Together we were able to see between 150-175 people at the dental clinic at Familias de Esperanza in Antigua and the El Faro clinic in San Rafael. Services provided include oral surgery, restorative and preventive health care. I would like to thank the Henry Schein Cares Foundation for the donated supplies. They are highly appreciated!
Me and my colleagues are dental hygiene students, but also registered dental hygienists, who believe that more people need to be aware of the dental profession and its purpose. We worked together on a dental project consisting of 3 parts. Our main goal was to provide oral screenings and instructions to a target group of minor high school students in the Washington area.
We started off in Seattle where we gave presentations about our profession and the application process for dental school. The 65 students we reached in two different schools were very excited and curious which made this first part of our project rewarding and fulfilling. We had different work stations available that included hygiene instrumentation, restorative, anesthesia and oral hygiene. The second part of this project was more about education. We visited a drug rehabilitation home in Renton where we educated the people about the importance of oral hygiene. The topics that were discussed involved oral hygiene instructions, oral cancer screenings, nutritional counseling and oral lesions. We also made the link between drugs and oral health to highlight the consequences of their formal risky behavior. That might stimulate them to stay off drugs.
Last, but not least, we presented at an adult family home where we educated the staff about the importance of doing regular oral cancer screenings. Other educational topics involved oral hygiene instructions, nutritional counseling and the oral and systemic link.
All of these events have been a great success and we very much hope to continue doing projects like this in the future. We are grateful to the Henry Schein Cares Foundation for their contributions in making this happen and express our many thanks!
Aji, Kah Jobe
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- Dr. Edwin Moreano (left) and myself (right) post-surgery
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- Beautiful Ecuadorian children and their families await treatment.
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- My daughter Emma and I comfort the kids in the recovery room in Spanish after they come out of surgery. We also distribute gifts and clothing we have gathered during the year from friends and classmates.
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- A local doctor, Dr. Ted Eisenberg, Dr. Edwin Moreano and Carole Cassidy, RN surround a cleft lip patient in the recovery room of Enrique Garcia Hosptial in Quito, Ecuador.
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- A ten month old little angel named Brittany awaits surgery cuddling a stuffed animal donated by the mission team and sporting a surgery cap hand made by Dr. Dick Hoistad’s mother!
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- The view from the hospital window where the mission is based.
MOREANO WORLD MEDICAL MISSION (MWMM): March 27, 2013
The 17th edition of Dr. Edwin Moreano’s World Medical Mission (MWMM) has successfully commenced in Quito, Ecuador.
Dr. Moreano, a plastic surgeon from Bayville, Long Island, New York, is the founder and director of this well-established medical mission that has been in operation since 1999. This week, he has led a team of volunteers to his native Ecuador to perform surgery, transport bags of supplies and teach new techniques.
His mission has strong ties this year to Long Island, New York, as more than a third of his team of 33 consists of residents, including myself. Joining us as well is a team of nurses from Huntington Hospital.
Our team is the proud recipient of a grant from the Henry Schein Cares – Helping Health Happen outreach initiative, which provides for critical medical/surgical supplies and equipment such as stethoscopes, blood pressure monitors, sterile dressings, dental hygiene packs, surgical gloves and antibiotics. The MWMM team, and most importantly the patients, are greatly benefitting from Henry Schein’s support.
The supplies are being put to immediate use at Enrique Garces Hospital during cleft lip, eye, ear and throat surgeries on mainly babies and young children. Many of the beautiful small patients travel up to 10 hours by bus with their families to take advantage of the free, expert services of the mission.
A special volunteer, Erika Alexandria Montes, is also helping us this week. She is the mother of a mission patient from 10 years ago who had cleft lip and palette repair which changed her appearance and life. The mom was so appreciative that when she heard the mission was coming to Quito, she took a week off to volunteer!
Some of the most interesting cases, so far, include a prosthetic ear implant on a young girl. The surgery was performed by plastic surgeons Dr. Moreano and Dr. Ted Eisenberg of Philadelphia. Dr. Eisenberg and his wife Joyce, who is also volunteering this week, donated three of the prosthetic ears for the children of Ecuador.
Another interesting surgery was a bilateral cleft lip repair on a 5 month-old little girl named Michelle. It was performed by Drs. Moreano and Eisenberg.
Multiple ear and throat procedures have been performed by Dr. Dick Hoistad of Seattle and Dr. Sandra Skovlund of Minneapolis, respectively. They are veterans of almost every one of Dr. Moreano’s missions and they bring an expertise in their surgical specialties along with compassionate care for the patients in Ecuador that is second to none.
We have been joined this year by Dr. Greg Gordon, an ophthalmologist who has performed multiple cataract surgeries, Dr. Kip Bodi, a urological surgeon who has assisted with whatever type surgery he has been asked to assist on, and Dr. Maria Herrera, a dentist who is conducting dental clinics in schools around Quito during the week.
The anesthesia team consists of Paul Herger, Nurse Anesthetist, Dr. Marion Rowe, Dr. Joseph DeSouza and Dr. Roy Berenholtz. Their ability to adapt to some challenging equipment issues in the public hospital here is admirable.
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