The Montana Dental Association appreciates the personal effort and self-sacrifice of its members who serve as volunteers in lesser-developed countries, improving the oral health of their citizens.  

In our effort to share the experiences of MDA members who volunteer in foreign countries to provide dental care, we publicize the stories of their travels and service on the MDA site.  If you have served in a foreign country as a volunteer, providing dental services, we want to hear from you, too.

Kalispell Dentist Dr. David Downey Volunteers as Teacher

Dr. Downey writes, "This may not qualify as foreign service, but it was certainly something different. After my second year in dental school I worked as a table waiter in a salmon cannery at Nakeen, Alaska on the Bristol Bay. The cannery doctor turned out to be my pharmacology instructor. When the fishermen were out we extracted teeth for the Eskimos. They came from Pilot Station on the Yukon and, as I understood it, a dentist went there about once a year so the men had some serious dental problems. By the end of the season we had extracted forty-six teeth."

After entering private practice Dr. Downey began his stints of foreign service. In 1960 he went with other dentists to Loreto, Mexico, to do extractions. He states, "We did some at Loreto, then traveled by truck to some villages in the mountains and did more extractions there." In 1968 he went to Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] to work for the Hope Ship, teaching in the dental school at the University of Ceylon for a two-month tour as a volunteer. "The University requested that I stay there longer and Hope wanted me to do it also. So I came home, got a dentist to take care of my patients and rent my house and then with my wife and five children, went back to Ceylon where I worked as a visiting professor at the dental school for another thirteen months. The Hope ship left a ten-passenger Land Rover there for our use so we were able to see a lot of the island country during that time. It was certainly one of the highlights of our lives." Some years later, in 1989 Dr. Downey and his wife went to Belize with a medical-dental team where they visited remote Mayan Indian villages and did extractions. In 2004 they traveled to Mulege, Mexico on the Baja Peninsula where they worked in a Rotary-sponsored dental clinic for two weeks. Dr. Downey comments, "It was well equipped and well supplied. I knew that it would be interesting and hoped it would be fun and rewarding. It was all of those. It was especially interesting because my dental assistant didn't speak English. The Mexican people are very nice so it was rewarding to help them. I became a root tip extraction specialist, along with doing restorations and prosthetics."

Dr. Lacy Claeys and Helena High Student Serve as Foreign Volunteers in Mexico

For Helena dentist Dr. Lacy Claeys and Helena High School senior Luke Dutton, their recent volunteer experience in Juarez, Mexico, was a life-changing experience.  They spent 10 days in the windy Mexican town, easing the pain of their orphaned patients and absorbing the culture of the Mexican community.

Helena’s Evangelical Covenant Church, which Dr. Claeys and Luke attend, has long supported an orphanage and clinic in Juarez.  This was Dr. Claeys' first mission trip.  Luke made the trip last year, building homes and helping to teach Bible lessons.  The trip in March was his first experience working directly with the town’s children.   Luke, who is 18, recently decided he wants to become a dentist, and had trained with Dr. Claeys and her husband, Christian, at their Helena dental clinic.  In Mexico he assisted Dr. Claeys.

To learn about their experiences, link to:
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/04/07/local/top/45lo_080407_pwk.txt
and
http://datanotshown.blogspot.com/2008/04/when-people-do-good.html

Frequent Foreign Volunteer, Dr. James Hanna

MDA long-time member Dr. James Hanna of Billings (who is now retired from the practice of dentistry) had lengthy service as a foreign volunteer during his career as a dentist.  He served overseas seven different times, doing dentistry.   He reports, "Most of my service was extractions; however in Guatemala and Honduras I did restorative Dentistry.  I served for a month at a time in Honduras, Guatemala, Hong Kong, China, Palawan Island in the Philippines, Thailand, on the Burmese border, Brazil, 500 miles up the Amazon river at Satareim and in Lima Peru, where I distributed wheelchairs to the handicapped."

He continues, "I served two to three-week missions with the U.S. Public Health Service in Point Barrow Alaska; Harlingen, Texas; Meridian, Mississippi; and Florida, at Ruskin.  I was paid for these short tours of duty, but the other times I served were through Rotary International, and I acted as a volunteer and supplied all of the necessary dental materials which I took with me."

Dr. Hanna resides at 2740 N. Gregory Drive, Billings, MT 59102

 

 

Montana Dental Association
P.O. Box 1154
Helena, Montana 59624

E-Mail: mda@mt.net
800-257-4988 (In Montana only)
406-443-2061 (in the Helena area)
Fax: 406-443-1546