POSTED: March 2003

by Charles F. Craft, DDS
Charles F. Craft is the Director of the East Meets West Dental Program

Any visitor to central Vietnam is immediately struck by the warm friendliness of the local people. Introductions are invariably accompanied by lots of hand-shaking, loud laughing and huge smiles. But those broad smiles reveal the harsh reality that almost all of the people living in this region are suffering from painful and diseased teeth. Local health officials are quick to admit that dental disease is one of the most common medical conditions afflicting their population.

Oral health surveys indicate that over 90% of the rural people in central Vietnam suffer from acute dental pain and chronic oral infection. Government dental clinics are few and often under-staffed and poorly equipped. They also lack the modern materials that can help prevent dental decay. There remains a huge unmet need for dental care in Vietnam today

Efforts to address this health concern were started by East meets West in 1995. EMW overseas director Mark Conroy and Alaska dentist Dr. Charles F. Craft wrote a proposal to the EMW Board to create a dental program in Danang that would provide humanitarian dental services for underprivileged and needy children. Dr. Craft returned in 1996 with the first of five large shipments of donated equipment and supplies (valued at over $250,000). Other dental volunteers also started to come from around the world to offer their professional time and service to help establish a clinic that would provide the highest disease prevention and treatment care standards possible.

Our first volunteer was Dr. Tom Kovaleski, who is the dental director of the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. Dr. Kovaleski is a former Marine helicopter crew chief who served in Vietnam and wanted to return to help the rebuilding process. He had vast experience in providing health care for the Native American people in the remote areas of Alaska. Dr. Kovaleski helped establish the first EMW dental facility, at Marble Mountain just outside of the city of Danang. He figured out how transform the unreliable electrical current to protect sensitive American dental equipment, and spent many long days setting up the equipment and creating a functioning clinic.

He was followed in 1996 by Dr. Brian Hollander, who is the dentist for the US Embassy in Katmandu, Nepal. Dr. Hollander had previously directed a charity dental program for the Sherpa people living high up in the Himalayan mountains. Brian used this knowledge to help EMW carefully select our dental staff and train them in proper and compassionate patient treatment service. Our highly professional Vietnamese dental team is now represented by our chief dentist, Dr. Tuong, Dental Nurse Truc and Dental Assistants Nga and Ly. They always serve our children in the most caring and loving way possible.

Our third volunteer was Dr. Richard Graham, who has been an expatriate dentist in Bangkok, Thailand for over 30 years. Dr. Graham recommended that once EMW had an established dental program that it was important to collaborate with the national dental university in Ho Chi Ming City and the Vietnamese Dental Society in Hanoi. He also urged us to build a relationship with the American Dental Association and the FDI World Dental Organization and to share information with other dental programs in the developing world.

These three dentists were just the first of over 35 foreign volunteers who have come to Danang to work with our Vietnamese dental team since 1996. There have been specialists, general dentists, hygienists, assistants and dental students. Volunteers work side by side, in international cooperation with our Vietnamese staff. Each person has offered their unique skills and valuable insights to help maintain and constantly improve our program. They also bring urgently-needed dental materials and supplies and help perform equipment repairs. A typical dental volunteer will stay one or two weeks and work several days in our new 3D Center Office and then many more days at an outreach site. This is often a children’s center or remote village school location. They donate their time and their travel expenses to help promote and improve the health of the children of central Vietnam.

Since 1996 our Vietnamese dental staff and our international volunteers have treated over 17,000 patients and provided over 50,000 dental services (worth in excess of $2.5 million). Several volunteers have returned many times to Vietnam to work with EMW, such as Dr. Ron Berquist, Dr. Chuck Hazen, Josh Wagner and Dr. Lan Jones.

Some dentists are war veterans such as Dr. Bill Brown, Dr. Warren Jones, Dr. Arly Dunham and Dr. Barry Booth. Recently, we have we have had dentists and students who were raised in Vietnam but educated overseas, such as Dr. Van Nguyen, Duy Nguyen, Que Anh Nguyen and Quyen Vu.

All of these volunteers exhibit the human values that are the heart and soul of the dental program. East Meets West would like to extend our appreciation to each and every dental volunteer.

Learn more about EMW Dental Program.