On her left wrist, Hannah Ciullo carries a daily reminder of courage. The ocean-blue bracelet she wears was made by a little girl she treated on the school’s annual mission trip to the Dominican Republic. “Sometimes I get feelings like, ‘I can’t do this. This is too hard for me. This is too complex,’” she said. “I look at this bracelet, and I just remember, I can do it.” Ciullo went to La Romana, Dominican Republic, as part of a program run by Rutgers School of Dental Medicine in collaboration with World of Smiles.
Surrounded by sugarcane fields, villagers of La Romana have sugar-heavy diets with limited oral health care. “There are poor areas in the United States, but you don’t see the level of poverty you see there,” said Herminio Perez, assistant dean of student affairs, diversity and inclusion, and the trip’s organizer. He recounted how people often live in dirt-floor houses and wear soleless shoes. “Even though they need things, they are grateful that you are there and share with you the little that they have,” Perez said.
Like that bracelet.
The dental clinic is in a local school, Fundación Mir, and operates year-round with volunteer doctors from various dental schools. While they mostly treat children, parents and school staff frequent the clinic, too. Perez organized Rutgers School of Dental Medicine’s first trip in 2017 with four students and a few attendings. That year, the group treated 86 patients in four days. Seven years later, the number of students doubled, and so did the number of patients. The team performed 346 dental procedures ranging from extractions to restorations to cleanings in four days in the clinic. To read the full story.