Breakfast at 6:30 and we leave for the clinic at 7:30, patients arrive at 8:00. So, 6 treatment rooms, 11 providers (US--2 hygienists and 4 dentists and Paluaian--5 dentists). How do we do this? Rick and I have our own rooms, one Palauian dentist watches me. Gloria and Jeannette share their two rooms with one Palauian dentist, Adrian does triage, and Dave is making dentures. One Palauian dentist assists him. Finally another Palauian dentist, he is Japanese, seems to stay busy seeing his own patients. Confusing? Us too! But. it seemed to work on our first day. Didn't get the official count yet, probably around 20 patients were seen.
There was a break for most of us at 9:00 when we formally met Palau's Minister of Health. A formal greeting and thank you, now back to work. Otherwise, routine work. Fillings, extractions, one root canal and Dave is making same-day dentures. That is a break from the traditional 3-5 week denture. I won't bore you with the details but so far, we are impressed. He is working with two local lab techs so they can learn his unique approach.
The low point of the day was the two oral cancer patients that came in. One had already had his tongue removed but there was a recurrent legion on the floor of his mouth the size of a nickle. Not good. The other patient had what looked like oral cancer in the right cheek area. She had been told about it about 8 years ago. Also, not good.
Day two of clinic was similar to day one. Routine procedures but it seems that we are just replacing the resident dentists; seeing their patients while they relax. Not much mentoring going on. We will discuss this with them tomorrow.
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