Creating Smiles in Panama: A Pre-Dental Student’s Clinical Experience

Send us Fan Mail (https://www.buzzsprout.com/2534345/fa...) A lot of students want to serve abroad, but they worry they do not have the time, the money, or the language skills to actually help. We sit down with Georgia, a University of South Carolina student majoring in public health on the pre-dental track, to break down what it really looks like to join an international service learning experience and grow as a future healthcare professional at the same time. Georgia shares her path from arriving on campus as pre-med to realizing dentistry fit her better after talking with friends, shadowing multiple dental specialties, and finding a community in a pre-dental organization. Then she takes us to Panama, where her team sets up a pop-up dental clinic in a rural school and treats more than 80 patients across children, teens, and adults. We talk through the practical flow of care, from sterilization and prophylaxis to assisting the dentist, and what surprised her about access to dental care and prevention. Some of the most powerful lessons are not about instruments at all. Georgia explains how they built trust with kids who were nervous, why simple human moments like talking about soccer can lower dental anxiety, and how language barriers in Spanish change the way you communicate medical history and instructions. We also dig into public health themes like sustainable impact, patient education, and why prevention and follow-up matter in global health dentistry. Subscribe for more stories from international service, share this with someone considering a medical or dental mission trip, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. What part of Georgia’s experience would you want to try for yourself? I also want to thank our listeners for joining us as it is our goal to "share the voices of international service" with you!  As a 50+ year nurse that has worked in quite a variety of clinical roles in our healthcare system, taught healthcare courses for the past 20 years at the university level, and has traveled extensively with students on international service-learning trips, I can easily attest to the fact that it is the hands-on experiential experiences that are most meaningful in life! I hope that by hearing these voices you too can become involved in service, whether it be locally, nationally, or internatioally.  Feel free to check out our website at www.internationalservicelearning.org, follow us on Instagram @islmedical, or send me an email at                                      DrH@internationalservicelearning.org (mailto:DrH@islonline.org) if you wasnt to learn more about international opportunities for yourself, your school, your church, or any other cohort!