Our first day was typical of any first day on the job, where all of ones supplies come in Rubbermaid tubs, requiring set up, electricity and air compressors, an array of strangely shapped dental tools, two classrooms, and only two people in a group of 23 ( an additional 7 Canadian dental students, and their instructor had joined us in Urubamba), who speak the native language. Those of us who were not dentally inclined did our best to set up benches and tables for dental chairs, unpack a few supplies as proclaimed by the "Tub-Nazi", my Mom, and generally try to look busy or be helpful without getting in everyone else's way. A difficult feat, that seemed to lend itself to the rest of the week.
This being my first KIA adventure the only history I had to relate it to was Africa in 2008. And although that allowed for adequate preparing for what I would be seeing, experiencing, as I was the educated staff in that juncture, here I was not.
The dentists and dental staff worked their fingers to the bone from 8am until about 4-6pm every day. The rest of us often found ourselves having down time to wander about the property waiting for the next task to eagerly perform. Two exceptions lent themselves to this rule. My mom, fore-mentioned Tub-Nazi, and Cam, Mr. fix-it.
My mom packs, organizes, and keeps track of all the items that we bring and have. This ranges from toys, and stickers for the kids, to dental tools, gloves, bibs, needles, anesthetic, antibiotics, pain medications for both adults and children, toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, sterilization equipment for to tools, masks, headlights for seeing into patients mouths, and a random array of everyday supplies that are essential for KIA survival. Pens, permant makers, garbage bags, duct tape and cheap plastic table cloths, are items one absolutely cannot live without. She somehow knows where everything is, how much we have in stock, what is needed where, and who had each item. Screw with the system and there will be hell to pay. It keeps things running smoothly if people just ask and not remove things without her knowledge. At some point she was dubbed Tub-Nazi.
My favorite, and legendary within the group of the random supplies that is essential to KIA, is the black garbage bags that get taped to the sides of the wooden tables patients lay on. One side of the garbage bag is duct taped to the side of the table hanging over the edge. While the dentist works as there is often no suction or minimal suction, so the patient is instructed to "escupa aquí" - spit here. This is how the group name was established by Brian a few years ago: Escupa Groupa- Spit Group.
Cam was the other essential non-dental team member. Everyday a new problem presented itself for the mechanically inclined master to Jerry-rig, figure out, fix, or possibly kick into submission! While there is always a way to figure out the problem or work around it, Cam will probably be coming on every subsequent KIA adventure, and that is if he willingly decides to come, or just gets stuffed into a Rubbermaid tub if he disagrees. On occasion whe he had everything working, and nothing was smoking ominously in the background, he joined the rest of us in our hunt for productivity.
That being said we often were working hard too, but in these circumstances when you have such limited time to try and see as many people as possible one tends to work twice as hard to ensure no patient is missed or overlooked.
The dentists treated over 400 patients, and that is exclusive of the patients who were triaged and told their teeth were in good health, or the young children who recived a flouride painting on thier teeth to help prevent cavities or further decay of the cavities they had in their baby teeth.
Due to time and resource constraints, the children who had cavities in their baby teeth did not receive fillings, or would only have the tooth pulled if it was causing pain or infected. This led to a big importance on teaching oral hygiene. We taught kids how to brush thier teeth, giving them toothbrushes, and having them demonstrate back to us thier brushing skills, as well as flossing. We then would take those that didn't require further work and paint flouride onto thier teeth. It is a very sticky awful tasting substance that is great for tooth health. They often hated the experience, but were little troopers gritting and bearing the yucky experience
Everyone non- dental rotated helping in Triage, where Brian or Justin, due to the fact they could speak Spanish would speak to the patients and decide on thier needs; sterilization where you washed and cleaned the dental tools, oral hygiene lectures and flouride, or assisting in extractions. Guess where my favourite was..... If my Emergency Room preference for blood, guts and gore led you to guessing extractions, you are right. I worked with my brother Justin in the morning of our last day. In extractions the Densists work without the assistants as they are needed in fillings and cleanings. So I got to help assist, which is to set up the chair with supplies and grab things the doctors need. Justin kindly noted my affinity to stab people with shap objects and let me do the freezing on patients. Dentists are nicer and provide topical freezing prior to poking thier patients with needles... I only do such things on little kids in the ER.
The KIA adventure was finished at the elementary school with the students gathering to thank us for the work we did. Then they came to each us, one by one, to shake our hand, high-five or hug us. Every student from grades 1-6 personally thanked the 24 of us. It was amazing.
That was the conclusion of the KIA volunteering. There was so much more that happened in those 4 days but I would be here forever to tell all of the stories.
