Global Insights: GSDM Class of 2024 International Elective Externship Participants Shared Travel Stories
The students from this year’s trips to Nicaragua, Panama, and Honduras shared their experiences during an informational session on April 25. (Photos submitted by the students.)
GSDM students, faculty, and alumni traveled to three countries over the last academic year as part of the school’s International Elective Externships, to provide dental care to communities with little to no access to preventative care.
Participating students gained valuable hands-on experience through offering a range of much-needed dental procedures to vulnerable communities. The students from this year’s trips to Nicaragua, Panama, and Honduras shared their experiences during an informational session on April 25.
“This year, we are very excited to have a group of students who are very equally represented GSDM and the dental profession and had a huge impact on our global partners,” said Dr. Michelle Henshaw SPH 96 DPH 07, GSDM associate dean of global & population health. “Hopefully, the programs had a wonderful impact on them as well and they really wanted everyone to hear about these experiences.”
Mary Morcos DMD 24, along with Henshaw, Grace Christianson DMD 24, Pryscilla Acosta DMD 23, and Dr. Breno Reboucas, GSDM director of predoctoral pediatric dentistry and clinical associate professor of general and pediatric dentistry, traveled to Nicaragua in April to work with Superemos, a non-profit foundation devoted to education and training programs for low-income families in Estelí, Nicaragua.
The team worked with local dental students to treat pediatric patients up to the age of six. Their treatment plans included fluoride application, silver diamine fluoride (SDF) application, Silver Modified Atraumatic Restorative Technique (SMART), and extractions as needed.
Morcos said one of the important lessons she learned from the trip was to never assume anything. She first thought the team would be doing more extractions, but they mostly did preventative and restorative work—mainly because the program has been applying fluoride and emphasizing oral healthcare for years.
“The success of mission trips is the consistency to that mission trip,” Morcos said. “Because this program has been established for a couple of years, we were actually able to discuss the development of oral health in that region with those pediatric patients. It was such a rewarding experience seeing those smiles on these children and being appreciated over there by all the faculty, the students, all of the parents.”
Julian Munoz DMD 24 traveled to Panama in January with Shelby McCormick DMD 24 and Frank Casarella DMD 88 and spoke about working with the organization NEVOSH (Northeast Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity).
Munoz said the team worked in a pop-up clinic that saw patients, some of whom had not received dental care since the last time NEVOSH visited Panama, which was in early 2020. Munoz said most of the treatment was for acute dental pain from non-restorable teeth, which led to oral surgery.
The team saw close to 400 patients during their trip, with Munoz and McCormick seeing up to 12 patients a day each—a significant increase from what they are used to in the GSDM Patient Treatment Center.
“It was very fulfilling to be able to get [patients] out of pain and leave them healthier than how we found them,” Munoz said. “It was really eye-opening to see some of these patients traveling hours and hours, multiple bus rides, or even on foot from outside the region just to line up.”
Mahnoor Mahmood DMD 24 talked about her experience traveling to San Marcos, Honduras, in March with Cape CARES, a Honduran nonprofit humanitarian organization for Central American relief efforts. Mahmood said she worked with a group of doctors, nurses, dentists, and other volunteers in a rural clinic. She was primarily doing dental extractions and providing oral hygiene education to local schools. She saw around 20 patients a day ranging from four years old to 90 years old.
“I really enjoyed the trip,” Mahmood said. “I did an extraction [for one patient], and after the extraction he was like, ‘Thank you so, so much for coming here and serving the community here. God bless you and everything.’ It touched my heart.”
GSDM was unable this year to send students to Teacapan, Mexico, with Project Stretch, a non-profit of dental professionals dedicated to providing dental services to children in need. However, Jennifer Soncini DMD 02, GSDM clinical associate professor of general and pediatric dentistry, had participated in a previous trip with the organization and shared her experience with providing broad-based dental health education, preventative services, and fluoride rinse programs. Soncini said she hopes GSDM will be able to resume these trips in the future.
“I would love for students to actually be part of this,” Soncini said.