The Underserved

Tonight I got to experience how personal dental hygiene in India is nowhere near what it is in the US. A woman came into the office because she had a tooth ache. She opened her mouth and every single one of her teeth had large amounts of decay. The dentist was able to extract the tooth that was giving her the most pain, which was nice. I then asked her what she was going to do about the rest of the teeth, to which I got the reply “Nothing, she can’t afford it.  I would have to do a root canal on every single tooth in her mouth.” It broke my heart to think that this woman knows she is going to slowly lose every tooth in her mouth and it all could have been prevented with proper dental care.

Not long after this woman came in, a 9 year old girl arrives with a big spot on her neck, complaining of pain around the area. It appeared that she had so much decay on a tooth that an abscess has formed and is draining through her jaw bone and through her neck. Due to neither her nor her dad knowing how to speak Tamil or English, Dr. Priya was only able to prescribe her an antibiotic and send her on her way. She could not do any surgery without being informed about the girl’s medical history or without properly informing the family of the procedure needing to be done.

These two events have reminded me of exactly why I want to be a dentist. They have encouraged me to keep striving towards my goal to help the underserved and make a difference in these people’s lives.