Mount Airy orthodontist Dr. Stuart A. Sheer has held his breath as the little prop plane he was aboard squeezed between Himalayan peaks to reach a remote airstrip in Bhutan. Dental daredevil? No, a man on a mission.
Sheer is one of the Carroll dentists who fly thousands of miles at their own expense to provide free dental care. Their patients are people living in remote areas beyond the reach of their countries’ health care systems. Volunteers’ temporary offices may be schools or hospitals; wherever there is space to set up equipment and store supplies.
In 27 years of volunteering, Sheer has been the first Western dentist to visit Bhutan, given lectures on dental techniques in Africa and Asia, and used his skills to end a 14-year-old Chinese boy’s isolation.
Under the auspices of various charitable organizations, and sometimes on their own initiatives, volunteer general dentists fill cavities, extract infected teeth, give fluoride treatments and introduce youngsters to toothbrushes. Teams of oral surgeons perform up to 150 operations a week on children with cleft lips or palates. Orthodontists make obturators, appliances that close clefts for those who are not candidates for surgery. Sometimes the orthodontists can add composite teeth, so youngsters with cleft lips or palates can smile.
Sheer has spent the last decade working with Health Volunteers Overseas, finding satisfaction in giving technique lectures to health care professionals in developing countries, who then use the skills with their patients. Other volunteers provide direct service through organizations that shuttle medical equipment, supplies, dentists and dental assistants over pothole-pocked dirt roads to remote areas.
Cockeysville-based Ecuadent Foundation, for example, sends a 40-foot shipping container by sea to Ecuador, loaded with medical and dental supplies and clothing donations before each visit of its volunteer doctors and dentists. Ecuadent was founded in 1990 by Tammy Fesche, a native of Ecuador, to help the poor people of her country. She is the wife of Westminster dentist Dr. Marshall Fesche.
Because of the difficult logistics of long distance supply chains, sometimes glitches happen.
“You have to be flexible,” said Dr. Gary R. Imm, a Westminster area general dentist who recently returned from a trip to Vietnam sponsored by Operation Smile. When the material for fillings did not arrive at the village where they were working, the dentists were unable to fill teeth, but provided other services.
The trips illustrate common humanity. Westminster orthodontist Dr. Robert T. Scott has been impressed during his 15 trips to Ecuador by the beauty of the children. He said he was affected by “the universal desire of parents to seek care for their children. That spans all religions and cultures.”
The medical teams evaluate prospective patients for surgery. Sometimes surgery cannot be performed because of such factors as age or the amount of scar tissue. They then post a list on the wall with the names of those they can treat. “It’s an emotional moment,” said Scott.
Scott has volunteered primarily with Ecuadent Foundation. Some volunteers, like Scott, take along dental assistants and technicians from their staffs to work with them.
Dentists say they receive more than they give. When Imm volunteered to go to Vietnam through Operation Smile, he anticipated the pride and pleasure of working with his daughter Amanda, a dental hygiene student at University of Maryland and also a volunteer. He didn’t expect a healing hand from a former North Vietnamese soldier.
As an American, Imm found the evidence of damage caused by the U.S. military’s use of Agent Orange “kind of gut-wrenching.” The dental team set up at a school, where the custodian invited Imm to tea. The man lived in a small room at the school, with few possessions. He played his flute for the visitor, and told Imm he had served in the North Vietnamese army. As tea ended, the custodian gave Imm his flute. “Maybe that’s how he deals with what he [as a North Vietnamese soldier] did in the war,” Imm said.
On an Operation Smile trip to China, Sheer met Je Ling, 14, who had a cleft palate and six missing upper front teeth. His speech was intelligible only to his parents and sister. Sheer made him an obturator and closed flaps in the hole in the roof of the boy’s mouth. “He said, ÔThank you, Dr. Stuart’ and he could articulate the sounds well. That got everybody going,” said Sheer.
“It’s hard to put into words. You get more than you give,” he said. “It opened my eyes, offered perspective on our place in the world. I came to understand how great the need was, how fortunate we are. But there are so many people, especially in Bhutan, living happy lives without the material trappings of our society.”
Twenty Carroll dentists provide free services locally through the Maryland Foundation for Dentistry for the Handicapped, which refers patients who live on fixed incomes and have mental or physical disabilities.
Dr. Marshall Fesche, a Westminster general dentist, volunteers with Ecuadent and through the foundation. A long-time volunteer, he has been particularly helpful with mentally challenged patients, said Lilian Marsh, foundation director.
Dr. Edward M. Goldman, a Westminster orthodontist, has been fitting children with braces and providing other free services to patients referred by the foundation for 15 years. He said he enjoys treating low-income patients because, although they tend to have more severe problems than more affluent children, “They are usually pretty appreciative.”
Extracting infected teeth and alleviating pain for patients in remote areas has been part of Dr. Paul Bowersox’s experience in the Naval Reserve. The Westminster general dentist joined the reserves after active duty service. The opportunity to provide dental care to people without access to dentists has occasionally been part of the two-week annual field training required of military reservists. Most of the training has been in Alaska, but he has also treated patients in Grenada and Peru. “We need to do more good for more people,” he said.
