Early start today. Breakfast at 6:30, then a cross-city bus ride to New Life Church’s Phnom Penh orphanage. 31 children live here. A very nice facility, several buildings; kids are well taken care of. As we arrived, there must have been a hundred people waiting for us! A shade awning was set up with chairs for everyone. All were triaged, and they cued up in several lines. One for exams by the physicians, the women had a separate room, and lines for pharmacy, or dental.
Our Welcome banner as we arrived. Our typical field set-up before we start our day.
We were in a small room next to the physicians. Also, we were joined by a local dentist, Dr. Serey. A young guy, has been practicing for 8 years, his wife became a dentist 4 years ago. He can only help us today, his wife is pregnant, and he has dental continuing education to attend later in the week. He gave me his business card. He works 6 days a week, from 8-7. Our cue was reasonable, so we got to work. Mostly adults, for some reason we did not evaluate all the kids. We don’t ask questions; just see each patient for their chief complaint.
This is Gloria working with Dr. Serey; a busy time. This is Charlie starting down the path of extracting 13 teeth on this fella.
Interesting cases: Other than the routine extractions of one or two teeth, (usually root tips). This one gal came in with a “gum infection” . She was 14, I thought she may have a retained baby tooth causing the lesion. Dr. Serey, numbed her up and started to currette (clean out) the tissue, when she really started to bleed. He called me over, we got the bleeding controlled, but as I was evaluating the lesion, it sloughed off. A piece of tissue about 2cm by 1cm! This exposed the bone and the roots of the teeth. I wish I could send it to a pathology lab, but all we could do was clean it up the best we could, put in a couple of sutures and hope for the best.
Another patient came in wanting one tooth extracted, then four more. As I extracted teeth, he pointed to other teeth in his mouth, I pulled 5 more, then finally 3 more. After I finished pulling those 13 teeth, he wanted another one, but since we had to shut down the clinic, it will have to wait another day. I would say that he was a satisfied patient though. Finally, another patient fainted! Dr. Serey and Gloria were extracting two of her teeth. She had high blood pressure so she was bleeding more than ideal. Finally to control the bleeding, Dr. Serey put in a couple of sutures. That got the bleeding under control, but then she fainted. So, I took her down on the floor, raised her feet, confirmed we had a good pulse and called one of the physicians. Her blood pressure was lower! We believe she was just worn out by all the work. She was taken to another room, monitored and was dismissed about 30 minutes later.
Awe, just a typical day.
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