RSDM Provides Care for Patients in Haiti, Dominican Republic

In two villages on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, most residents see a dentist once a year—when RSDM students arrive on a mission called Cheerful Heart.

“When we’re not there, they’re not getting care,” says graduate Anna Novais, who went on the trip in 2014 as a student and returned as an alumna. “There isn’t a dentist for miles, and most people can’t afford the cost.”

Other dental schools travel to Haiti or the Dominican Republic to help impoverished patients, but it’s rare to find a dental mission that serves both countries simultaneously, given their different cultures and languages.

Since 2011, a team from RSDM team has set up a temporary clinic in the rural village of Restauración, the Dominican Republic; it also treats patients from nearby Tilori, Haiti. Conditions there are challenging. The clinic is established in a hospital that doubles as the village funeral home.

In these remote border communities, health care, if it exists at all, is underfunded and unable to accommodate an overwhelming flow of patients. A toothbrush is considered a luxury, and dental decay—along with the health problems associated with it—is rampant.

But RSDM faculty and staff have made a difference. Last year they saw more than 450 patients and performed 1,000 procedures in a week. The dental sealants and annual preventive care they’d provided in previous years have reduced caries.

One reason for the mission’s success is the diversity at RSDM. The trip, funded by Cheerful Heart, includes students who speak French and Creole as well as those who speak Spanish.

Since 2014, the dental mission has been joined by nursing students from William Paterson University, and the trip has been cited as a model for cross-cultural, interdisciplinary work.

For students, the experience has been both eye-opening and gratifying. Says Novais, “It’s incredible to see the smiles of the children there and how much they appreciate the work we do.”