USNS Mercy humanitarian mission inspires dentists and students
San Diego鈥擳hey came from all backgrounds but one thing they all agreed on: being a part of the U.S. Navy’s humanitarian civic assistance mission Pacific Partnership 2008 was a “life-changing experience.”
The four-month adventure鈥攚hich saw the USNS Mercy hospital ship deliver medical and dental care to some 90,000 people in five countries鈥攊nspired everyone from veteran dentists to military personnel of all ranks to students on summer break and showed them that sometimes it’s as simple as lending a hand and a smile to a produce an international feeling of goodwill.
“We got more out of this than we gave. This mission changed our lives,” said Capt. James Rice, the Naval surgeon who commanded the mission. “You can never practice the same way again. This is why we went into our professions.”
Dr. Gary Seiden, a Washington, D.C., general dentist and ADA member, called the 10 days he spent treating patients in Papua New Guinea, “one of the most fulfilling experiences” of his life.
From May 1-Sept. 25, 2008, the Mercy ship traveled to Vietnam, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, the Federated States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea. The mission also included members of the U.S. Air Force, Army, Public Health Service and Coast Guard. Civilian volunteers came from the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, India, Chile, Indonesia, Portugal and Singapore.
The University of California San Diego Pre-Dental Society, a student organization that promotes dentistry and gives students hands-on experience working with dentists by running three dental clinics, organized the U.S. volunteers. The group included 37 pre-dental students, two pre-pharmacy students, three pre-medical students, a dental student, two pharmacy students and nine medical students. There were also six dentists, five physicians and two pharmacists. Dr. Terrence Leary, a naval captain, managed the Mercy’s dental department.
Not just the “volunteer experience of a lifetime,” the trip also reinforced the students’ desire to one day become dentists.
“Some patients told me that they’d prayed for years that they’d be treated. This was their only hope,” said Quyen Nguyen, a UCSD junior. “One person told me he’d been praying for God to send an angel and he sent a boat of angels.
“Going on this trip made me see that even though I am one person, I can do a lot of good and a lot of work.”
“These students realize that being a dentist is a powerful profession,” said Dr. Irvin Silverstein, a periodontist and director of the UCSD Pre-Dental Society and University of California San Diego Student-Run Free Dental Clinic Project. He’s also a volunteer professor at the UCSD medical school and coordinated two previous missions with the Navy.
All of the students paid their own way to get to the countries where they joined the mission and did anything that was asked of them鈥攆rom painting makeshift clinics to cleaning.
They cooked meals and shoveled dirt鈥攁nything to make space for patients. Often, they were asked to translate, especially the students of Vietnamese descent.
“They only thing they didn’t do is the dentistry because they aren’t dentists,” said Dr. Silverstein.
Capt. Rice said before attending medical school and ultimately becoming a surgeon, he considered becoming a dentist. He had a soft spot for the students and called them “a great bunch of kids who each brought a skill that greatly contributed to the success of the mission.
“They came onboard and we utilized them,” he said. “They were young and energetic and always had smiles on their faces. They really added to this.”
U.S. Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) honored all of the participants from the UCSD Pre-Dental Society with a special congressional certificate that Dr. Silverstein said she personally presented to the students.
“Our students were so motivated and flexible that they helped make the mission more productive and they put an energy into the mission,” he said. “The people around them felt their energy and loved working with them.”
As UCSD senior Diana Lin put it, it was important because “if you don’t have health, you can’t really do anything.”
Ms. Lin called her time on the Mercy “extremely rewarding.” A student manager at the UCSD clinic, she hopes to go to dental school next fall. She has two brothers who are dentists and has always known she wanted to work in health care.
She and her classmates worked nine-hour days and assisted the volunteer dentists by holding patients’ heads, retrieving instruments and holding flashlights.
Mr. Nguyen, a son of Vietnamese parents who immigrated to the U.S., found the trip inspirational and even managed to take part in two legs of the mission, one in Vietnam and the other in Papua New Guinea. He was also one of the main translators in his native鈥攂ut unfamiliar鈥攍and.
He described a childhood with “crooked teeth and no money for braces.” Eventually he earned the money for braces himself and later volunteered at his dentist’s office.
“I know how it was for me, growing up with a crooked smile,” he said. “I want to help kids get straight teeth.”
Like Ms. Lin, he is also a student manager at the UCSD clinic.
He tried to be useful by translating and set about talking to patients to see how they felt being treated.
Like many of the volunteers interviewed for this story, the experience left a lasting impression.
Volunteers wanted
Planning is under way for two 2009 missions. One is the USNS Comfort and its mission to the Caribbean, Central and South America; the other is the USS Dubuque to the Oceania Islands. Health care professionals interested in taking part are asked to e-mail Dr. Irvin Silverstein at dsilverstein22@cox.net.
The Navy spends about six months planning each mission, sending advance scout teams to determine areas with the most need. Dental treatment usually includes extractions and in some cases, restorative work. For the first time, Mercy mission placed some 60 crowns, thanks to the CEREC machines on the ship. Dr. Silverstein expressed his thanks for a donation of four CEREC machines from Sirona for use during the mission.
Disaster relief is part of the core competencies of the Navy, along with empowering people in developing nations across the world.
“This is a big deal,” Capt. Rice said. “I’m hoping to build a bigger dental blueprint. You have to do extractions, but it would be nice to be able to do both.”
To read more about the Navy’s Mercy and Comfort hospital ships, visit www.navy.mil and type “USNS Mercy” in the search box.
“It’s changed my life, totally,” Mr. Nguyen said. “Before I wanted to help people in my community, maybe go down to Mexico. I didn’t really have a grasp of how bad it was around the world and how bad people had it.”
According to Dr. Silverstein, many of these students had never returned to their home country. One of his students even saw his father for the first time in many years after his mother called relatives in Vietnam and told them about the Mercy. In all, the rewarding experience was also emotional and personal for these students.
Physicians and dentists, students and teachers, engineers and veterinarians鈥攅veryone took home valuable life lessons from the journey.
“We all learned from each other,” Capt. Rice said. “We are very passionate about this. This why we went into medicine and dentistry. We love being in the Navy and being involved in humanitarian missions is great.”
Dr. Seiden hopes to be involved later this year when the East Coast-based USNS Comfort heads to the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
“I am definitely on board to do it again,” he said.
Being out in the field was the best part of the experience, Dr. Seiden said. For those trips, speedboats鈥擝and Aid 1 and 2鈥攚ould ferry the workers from the ship to secured areas on land, and there they would treat the hundreds鈥攎aybe even a thousand鈥攑eople who lined up each day. Sometimes the dentists worked in converted garage spaces or old churches; other times they were out in the open working on teeth.
“It was unbelievable,” Dr. Seiden said. “The people never stopped coming. The line never stopped. They were so excited to get treated. These poor people had never had access to dentistry before. If they had a tooth hurt for three years, it hurt for three years.”
On one occasion he recalled how it started raining during the middle of an extraction.
“This guy is leaning back with his mouth open and it’s pouring rain,” Dr. Seiden said in wonder. “If only we could have stayed longer.”
The desire to do more was an emotion felt by many of the volunteers.
Dr. Sussi Yamaguchi, a 2006 graduate of University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry, is a former UCSD Pre-Dental Society member who now manages the students as the first dental fellow of the San Diego Student-Run Free Dental Clinic Project.
“It really is my passion to go on outreach mission trips like these,” she said, echoing Dr. Seiden. “It was one of the best experiences I ever had and I hope I get more opportunities like this in the future.”
Dr. Yamaguchi volunteered for six weeks and said one thing she noticed was the variances in the way different populations treated their oral health. For instance, she noted that the Vietnamese patients鈥攂oth children and adults鈥攈ad rampant caries, while some she saw in Timor-Leste, in the South Pacific, had nice straight teeth but were stained from the betelnuts they chewed.
She was touched by the gifts she received from patients, who brought her food and other trinkets. She also said she benefited from interacting with the other volunteers.
“It was great sharing ideas with people from around the world. I learned you don’t have to speak the language to put a smile on someone’s face.”
Dr. Silverstein said he hopes the next mission can be more preventive, perhaps by bringing more hygienists and dentists who can teach locals to take care of their teeth and oral health.
“It’s very important for the partnership to see how these countries are and what their most urgent needs are,” he said. “We don’t want to just go there and fix things, we want to leave them with the ability to take care of themselves.”
Capt. Rice agreed, saying it was more than just about providing charity to needy nations鈥攊t was also a chance to teach those nations empowerment.
“We live in a global world,” Capt. Rice said, “and everything is interconnected. Americans need to know this story because this is a great country and this mission is something Americans should feel very proud of.”
Planning is already under way for two 2009 missions鈥攖he one to the Caribbean, Central and South Americas from the east and another to the Oceania Islands from the West Coast. Health care professionals interested in taking part are asked to e-mail Dr. Irvin Silverstein at dsilverstein22@cox.net.
To learn about more international volunteer opportunities in dentistry, please contact the ADA Center for International Development and Affairs, 1-312-440-2727 or e-mail international@ada.org.