The Need of Loma Linda University Students

The second but perhaps most important reason for Loma Linda University School of Dentistry to have a dental clinic in Africa has to do with the core values of our institution. Before the first shovel of dirt was ever moved, one of the most important reasons for the original NASDAD members’ dream, was to establish a place where young people would be prepared for service to others. Although any dentist makes a living by helping others, but this place has always had a unique emphasis on a ‘Culture of Caring’ and mission dentistry has always been an over-riding concern.

The education of professionals to not only provide excellent dental treatment but empathetic, compassionate, societally responsible service is our goal. To this end, a dental facility such the Maasai Dental Clinic is of utmost utility. When a student is immersed in a culture and an economic environment such a rural Africa’s, the lessons of privilege, and need, social responsibility and poverty are particularly effective.

The program of Service Learning which has been, in one form or another, an essential part of the curriculum, has a logical culmination in a fixed facility which gives the students a memorable, positive, experience providing essential care to noble and deserving human beings who would otherwise lack this part of basic human health.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of a Mission Trip
by Doyle Nick DDS

The conversation took place on board a launch in the middle of the Amazon River. I had led a group of students to Manous, Brazil to do dentistry for the people who lived along the Medira River, a tributary of the Amazon. We were housed and transported by the captain and crew of a launch that is on the river system year-round.

The captain-minister and I were talking when the cost of our mission trip came up. When I told him the approximate amount of money that we had spent to be there with him, he paused, got a far-away look in his eye and wistfully said, “That is enough to buy the little boat and outboard motor that I need to reach the villages when the water is low as well as the computer and video projector that I need for presentations to the villagers.” Suddenly I felt like an impediment rather than an adjunct to his work. I said something about people being able to contribute more if they are personally involved and went on with our talk but the memory of that conversation has bothered me for years.

Recently the subject came back to me while I was in Romania with five students, again, doing dentistry for children who would otherwise have gone without dental care. I was idly comparing the expense of the trip to the cost, in Romanian currency, for Romanian dentists to do the amount of dentistry that we had done. I wondered out loud to the students who were treating patients, “If we had sent the amount of money that this trip cost to be used to see Romanian dentists, would the benefit have been greater?”

Why is it that we sometimes spend more for a mission trip than the value of the treatment that we can render in the short time that we are there? What is the motivation? Since then I have thought, read and prayed about this subject and I now have six answers to these questions.

1. The first answer is that the benefit to the student dentists is priceless. The opportunity to provide care to someone who would not otherwise benefit from modern dentistry is a joy that must be experienced to be understood. The appreciation that is heaped upon us when we solve a severe toothache, or improve some teenagers self esteem by improving the esthetics of his or her anterior teeth, or relieve a mother’s worry about her child’s dental health, is wonderful. It is also convincing evidence of the responsibility that each Christian dentist bears for those members of our race who are less fortunate that are we. This evidence has a wonderful effect on the dentist throughout their career.
2. The second answer is found in the benefit of mission trips to the profession. The unmet dental needs around the world are staggering in their severity and universality. Millions of people suffer from every day dental pain, infection, debilitation and systemic illness caused by chronic dental infection. If Loma Linda School of Dentistry can establish (and we are well on our way to doing so) a “Culture of Service” in which the expectation is that each dental alumnus generously and regularly contributes to the less fortunate of the world, then our legacy to the profession will indeed be priceless.
3. The third answer has to do with the effect of mission trips on the individual. When our students are privileged to visit a part of the world where an entire village’s combined assets may be worth less then the average dentist’s net worth, there may be a temporary feeling of superiority. This is very temporary, however, and is demolished as the student gets to know the people who live in poverty, and sometimes squalor. They quickly learn that the dignity, adaptability, skill, resourcefulness, generosity, and intelligence of these unlucky folks are often greater than our own. The attitude of superiority is replaced by feelings of respect, admiration, friendship, and kinship. This understanding of people, who’s world is dramatically different than our own, is essential to the humility needed for the truly successful dental practice. In addition, when an American, or any privileged person, kindly, humbly, and freely addresses basic human needs the world gets a different, and more accurate, perspective of the kinship of the world’s citizens. These understandings are of course in addition to the significant physical benefit of improved dental health that results from a mission trip.
4. Another answer involves the perception of the student of him/herself in relation to community and effectiveness. As students leave their own culture, the familiarities of home, and often their comfort level, they begin to automatically form into a team. As they deal with difficult logistics, local politics, and the practical problems that always arise, they discover that each person has their own gift and strengths and that only by working together, can the team be successful. The group consensus becomes important and individuals naturally develop respect for one another and confidence in themselves.
5. The fifth answer has to do with the benefit of mission trips which accrue to the technical education of the student dentist. Treating patients outside of the red tape, paperwork, and systems, necessary in the dental school environment, allows concentration on the elemental dental situation. This focus fosters, often for the first time, an increase in confidence, critical thinking, and satisfaction that powerfully improves the ability of the student to benefit from clinical dental education.
6. The sixth answer is found in John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son . . .” The truth is that Christian service has always been expensive, it has always been sacrificial. God Himself has set the original example of Christian service and we are impelled to emulate that example.