Winkler Red River College students are getting the chance to gain hands-on experience - both here at home, and thousands of kilometres from home.
Two students in the college’s dental assistant program recently returned from an 11-day missions trip to Guatemala in Central America.
Kaitlin Ward and Jamee Wiebe, joined by Morden dentist and program instructor Brian Minaker, spent time in early July volunteering their services with a joint medical/dental missions trip to the country, providing free dental care to needy people there.
The group - made up of dentists and dentistry students from both the U.S. and Canada, as well as a medical team - were based out of the city of Quetzaltenango (also known as Xela), with trips to several other communities.
While there, the dental team tended to hundreds of people - many of them children - who don’t generally have easy access to dental care, said Ward.
“There have been other missions dental teams that had been there before, but I don’t think they had seen a dentist for a long period of time,” she said.
“A lot of them were quite nervous,” noted Wiebe.
At each site - some of which were without electricity - the team had to set up the entire clinic, including the dental chair, from scratch, Ward said.
Once everything was set up, the dentists - with help from the dental assistants - provided hundreds of check-ups and fluoride treatments, several fillings, and over 400 tooth extractions.
It was a rewarding learning experience, and one that allowed the students - both of whom graduate from the one-year college course in October - the chance to put their new skills to good use.
This was my first missions trip,” said Wiebe. “I had wanted to find a way that I could give back a gift that was given to me.”
“It was a great experience,” she said. “It’s not for everybody - not everybody is into this sort of thing - but for those that are, it’s a good experience to have.”
“If they have the heart for it,”’ agreed Ward, noting the sometimes less than ideal working conditions made for some long, but ultimately rewarding, days.
For their work in Guatemala, the students will receive course credit as part of their program’s work practicums, which begin next month.
Program co-ordinator Athena Wilford hopes similar volunteer service trips will become a regular feature in the local Dental Assisting Level II course, which started up at the RRC Winkler campus last year.
It’s a powerful way to help remind students of the impact their work can have on people, especially the less fortunate, she said.
“You get to have those defining moments that tell you why you do what you do,” she said. “It really gives you that motivation to serve.”
STUDENT DENTAL CLINIC
Foreign trips are just one way the RRC students are translating their classroom smarts into the real world before graduation - the campus also recently opened its own dental clinic.
Students in the program have been offering cleanings, teeth whitening, x-rays, fluoride treatments, mouth guards, and other basic dental services since the clinic opened on Mondays and Tuesdays this June, said Wilford.
The state-of-the-art clinic came into being thanks to the generous donations of dentists both near and far, she said.
“We’ve had great support from the dentists in the community,” she said, noting that a lot of the equipment also came from a dentist in Ontario who was retiring from his practice.
“It just came flooding in,” Wilford said of the various donations. “We actually have equipment stored away right now, in case we ever want to expand.”
One of the greatest benefits of having students work in their very own clinic before graduation is it gives them a better idea of how a dental clinic really works, Wilford said.
“What we often found lacking (from new dental assistants in the workplace), is a lack of understanding of how a clinic functions,” she said. “This way, they have a general introduction to it earlier ... and we also spend a lot of time on working together as a team.”
There’s also a benefit to the community, especially those who could use a break on the costs of dental services, Wilford said.
The student clinic charges 50 per cent of what’s laid out in the Manitoba Dental Fee Guide, she said, and further provisions could be made for people in serious need.
Looking to the clinic’s future, Wilford hopes to one day form a partnership with the University of Manitoba faculty of dentistry, which would bring in dental students to the clinic, and allow the facility to offer even more services.
“We could be a fully functioning dentist’s clinic one day,” she said.
Nervous about having students working on your teeth? You shouldn’t be, says Ward.
“I don’t know if people do (have reservations), but they shouldn’t,” she said. “Someone’s always there working as a supervisor to make sure everything’s been done perfectly.”
“They have very high standards,” agreed Wiebe.
Those high standards have turned Winkler’s program into a how-to guide for running a successful dental assistant program, Wilford said.
“We took a program that’s 30 years in the running in Winnipeg, and we’ve enhanced it,” she said, noting changing certification requirements have made courses like this a necessity for people trying to get into the field.
For more on the dental assistant program - which starts its next semester in September - call the school at the number below
To make an appointment with the clinic, call 325-9672, extension 226.(source) |
