International College of Dentists (ICD)

USA Section

District 16 - Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina

Sphere

Volume 1, Number 2 Summer 2012

2

Regent’s Review Dr. William J. Bennett, Regent, District 16

On the cover: VCU’s Dr. Rana Graham-Montaque and students at The Hague School, Jamaica

There’s much activity in ICD, both in our

District and on the national scale. One is the

efforts of Dr. Richard Roadcap to regularly

publish the District 16 newsletter. We hope

you enjoyed the last one! We’re grateful for

everyone who contributed information and

articles of personal interest. I urge all Dis-

trict 16 Fellows to assist Dr. Roadcap and

make his job easy. We have an active District

with many interesting people and events.

Let’s get it printed and known!

One new USA ICD project that affects our

District is the Fisher House Project

(www.fisherhouse.org). Fisher Houses are lo-

cated near military hospitals. They house the

families of our wounded service personnel

undergoing treatment at the hospital. It al-

lows the family to be there for their family

member. ICD volunteers are asked to provide

any emergency dental care required for the

family during their stay. If you practice in the

vicinity of a hospital and are contacted by

your Deputy Regent please give your skills to

this wonderful new project. Even better, call

your Deputy Regent and say yes. You’ll save

them a call.

North Carolina is very active in ICD student

international activities. ICD is THE interna-

tional dental organization. Our world is get-

ting smaller. Dental students are (and have

to be) involved internationally. There are nu-

merous rewarding international ICD activities

for older dental professionals too. Interacting

with students is mutually rewarding. If you

aren’t involved in an ICD program already

take a look at some.

Visit the ICD website, www.usa-icd.org.

The website is full of information. Finding the

names of current ICD Fellows is simple. I

know when I wished to nominate a person for

Fellowship it was not easy to know who was

and wasn’t a Fellow. Now that can easily be

found on the website. The candidate applica-

tion and sponsor forms can also be obtained,

with instructions for the process. We urge

you to nominate worthy individuals. They are

out there and deserve the honor – someone

did it for you. Give someone else the honor of

being in this progressive international honor-

ary group.

A future strategic plan for our College is now

underway. I have seen many positive changes

in a few short years. Much is due to the ef-

forts of District 16 Fellows. Leadership is our

main objective and our District is full of out-

standing leaders!

Thank you all!!

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In this issue…

Regent’s Review………page 2

Awards/Recognition...page 3

VCU, Jamaica…………pages 4-6

ECU, Dominican Republic

…………………………...pages 7-8

GHSA……….…………..page 9

Savannah ICD-ACD photos...

http://www.facebook.com/

ICD.USA.Section/photos

2012 ICD Annual Meeting!

October 18-19, 2012 at the

Hilton San Francisco -

Union Square

See www.usa-icd.org for details

Awards and Recognition

Dr. Mayer Levy, FICD, (center) of Seaford,

Virginia, received the 2012 Humanitarian

Award from the Virginia Center for

Inclusive Communities

Photo courtesy of The Daily Press

Dr. Ralph L. Howell, FICD, of Suffolk,

Virginia, was appointed to the Board of

Trustees of the Virginia Health Care

Foundation

Know a member being recognized for

community service? Contact the editor!

See page 9 for details.

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In the fall semester Virginia Commonwealth

University junior dental and hygiene students

begin working to gain a place on The Jamaica

Project team for their senior year. This project

represents VCU’s annual international humani-

tarian mission and affords selected dental stu-

dents, along with faculty, a remarkable global

experience in humanitarian care.

The rich heritage of the project began in April

1986 when the late Dr. Mario Saravia assem-

bled and directed a team of thirteen compas-

sionate dental students along with faculty to

communities in Jamaica with little or no access

to dental care. At the time, Dr. Saravia was a

faculty member in the pediatric department at

VCU and was inspired by the dental crisis in

Jamaica through a friend in the Flying Dentists

Association. The trip lasted two weeks and

treated over 1200 patients. Due to the preva-

lence of severe decay in the population (due

mostly to chewing on sugar cane), services were

limited to extractions. Students paid their own

way, but their experience proved invaluable and

laid the foundation for the 25 years of interna-

tional public health dentistry that would follow.

Since that time, the VCU Jamaica Project, with

the guidance of the Department of Oral Health

Promotion and Community Outreach (headed

by Kim Isringhausen, BSDH, RDH, MPH), has

grown to three consecutive weeks of service be-

ginning the last week of October. Procedures

include extractions, restorations, prophylaxis

and oral health education. Each trip has pro-

vided treatment for over 1100 patients, with

VCU and the Jamaica Project

By: Matthew Winheim, MPH, Class of 2015, Virginia Commonwealth University and Dr. Alex Kordis

5

more than 3100 procedures completed. Teams

operate primarily out of a minimal health clinic

owned by the Everglades Farms near Clark’s

Town, but smaller groups travel to elementary

schools throughout the Trelawny Parish to pro-

vide nutritional and oral health education.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of The

Jamaica Project, a reunion was held on April

21, 2012 in conjunction with the VCU School of

Dentistry alumni reunion. The invitation list

included over 500 alumni of the project as well

as junior dental students planning to be on the

2012 team. The event created an engaging at-

mosphere by combining Jamaican cuisine, reg-

gae music by the band “MerBear”, and a video

and slide show of the times on the island pre-

pared by Dr. Mick Pope and students.

Celebrating the partnership of the VCU School

of Dentistry and the people of Jamaica, the

Honorary Consul for Jamaica in the Common-

wealth of Virginia, Ms. Beryl Walters-Riley, re-

flected on the project’s success and offered her

thanks. Dr. Robert Barnes was honored for his

16 years of leadership as faculty advisor. Dr.

Barnes recalled stories of friendships and com-

passion taken from his involvement with this

Long Pond Clinic, Jamaica

L-R: Dr. Alex Kordis, Ms. Beryl Walters-

Riley, and Dr. Robert F. Barnes

Continued from page 4

6

Continued from page 5

educational and charitable humanitarian pro-

ject. He was presented with several memorable

gifts along with an announcement of a fund

created in his honor, the Robert F. Barnes Ja-

maica Fund. Ten thousand dollars has al-

ready been pledged over a five-year period.

The money will be used to purchase portable

dental equipment. Dr. Alex Kordis, the newly

appointed faculty advisor for the project and

an assistant professor in the Pediatric Dentis-

try Department, expects the fund to grow, with

donations from The Jamaica Project alumni to

fully support trips in years to come.

In the meantime, some of the $10,000 annual

cost of the trip is offset by fund raising efforts

coordinated by junior dental students. In addi-

tion, students and faculty pay for their own

airfare and food. Even with the obstacles of

raising money and meeting academic require-

ments, students remain enthusiastic and com-

mitted to the project. Senior dental students

often tout the project was a highlight of their

dental education, believing it sets the stage for

incorporating humanitarian service through-

out their professional career.

L-R: Molly Adler, Casey Keating, a happy

patient, and JonMark Thompson. Ms. Adler,

Mr. Keating and Mr. Thompson were VCU

students.

Operative care at Long Pond Clinic

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Paying It Forward: A Thirty-Year Remembrance

By: Francis G. Serio, DMD, MS, MBA, FICD, FACD, FADI (Hon.)

Many of us have been fortunate in our lives,

fortunate to have had the benefit of tall

shoulders upon which to stand as we devel-

op and the good fortune that the dental pro-

fession has provided to us. Thus the idea of

paying it forward. To be sure, there has been

a lot of individual hard work involved, but

many others work very hard for very little

return.

My 30-year journey into volunteering started

in 1982. I wanted to travel and do something

useful at the same time. Through the inter-

vention of the Unseen Hand, Divine Inter-

vention, Luck, whatever you want to call it, I

was led to the Catholic Medical Mission

Board that placed me as a dental volunteer

in a Catholic mission in San Jose de Ocoa in

the Dominican Republic. I arrived in Santo

Domingo not knowing anything about any-

thing- no Spanish, nothing about interna-

tional development, and with three small

boxes of supplies. After 4 weeks of doing

morning extractions in the living room of

small houses in the countryside around

Ocoa and afternoon amalgams (with mortar,

pestle, and squeeze cloth) and auto cure

composites (imagine the speed needed with

the heat and humidity) I returned to my

teaching job at the University of Maryland.

After a lunch and learn session, several stu-

dents asked if they could participate and the

Dominican Dental Mission Project was born.

In the ensuing 30 years of continuous sum-

mer service, first in Ocoa until 2001 and

then in El Cercado and Hondo Valle by the

Haitian frontier from 1987 to now, over 550

volunteer dental students and dentists have

touched the lives of 56,000 of the rural poor

of the Dominican Republic by bringing them

over US$10 million in surgical restorative,

prosthodontic, and preventive care. Many

“graduates” of the project have gone on to

Dr. Serio, with daughter Grace watching

Continued on page 8

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develop projects of their own around the

world. The project has been recognized by

both President George H.W. Bush with the

President’s Volunteer Action Award in 1991

and by President George W. Bush with the

Daily Points of Light Award in 2001. Per-

haps the most touching thing to happen

was the comment from the poor of Hondo

Valle when they wrote that, “Because the

dentists come back every year, we know

that God has not forgotten us.” There is

nothing better than to bring hope to the

poor. Over the years, as the project has

evolved, so has the leadership. Dr. Steven

Pohlhaus, a Baltimore dentist, and his Do-

minican dentist wife Jenny, have been the

stewards of the project for the past ten

years. Some of the personal stories of the

project have been chronicled by the ADA

(http://www.ada.org/news/6732.aspx ). As

you read this, we should have returned

from our 31st annual trip.

One comment that is often made is that

there is plenty to do at home, why work

overseas? The answer is that sometimes

that is just how circumstances unfold. In

my case, I have taken my international ex-

periences and brought them to North Caro-

lina. As a faculty member at the new School

of Dental Medicine at East Carolina Univer-

sity, I am working closely with ECU stu-

dents at the North Carolina Mission of Mer-

cy Clinics, am the faculty mentor for two of

our students who have received Schweitzer

Fellowships, organize the dental effort for

Project Homeless Connect, and work with

the students coordinating the NC Baptist

Men’s Dental Bus at the Greenville Commu-

nity Shelter. Paying It Forward takes on

many forms and seems to be a lifelong com-

mitment. No doubt, many of you reading

this have had similar experiences. For our

ICD colleagues who have yet to Pay It For-

ward, the cost is not high and the returns

well worth it.

Dr. Cheryl Serio, Dr. Frank Serio

Operative Suite, Dominican Republic

9

Sphere

International College of Dentists

District Sixteen

Virginia, North Carolina, South

Carolina

Editor

Dr. Richard F. Roadcap

Richmond, Virginia

Regent

Dr. William J. Bennett

Williamsburg, Virginia

Vice Regent

Dr. Stephen B. Mackler

Greensboro, North Carolina

Published semiannually by:

Royal Wulff Press

1849 Duke of Gloucester Street

Colonial Heights, Virginia 23834

contact us: roadcap1@yahoo.com

Cover photo courtesy of

Dr. Alex Kordis

UNC students attend GHSA program

GHSA completes second year

By: Stephen B. Mackler, DDS, Vice Regent, District 16

Dr. David Frost, FICD, an oral and maxillofacial

surgeon and chair of the ADA committee on Inter-

national Affairs and Development, gave a presenta-

tion to nearly forty University of North Carolina

dental students on May 9, 2012. The Global Health

Student Association, now completing its second

year, heard Dr. Frost speak of volunteer teaching

and treatment experiences. His resume includes

twenty years of service in India, Peru, and Nepal, as

well as other countries.

The students elected GHSA officers for the 2012-

2013 school year, and agreed to meet again in the

Fall. To learn more about GHSA, e-mail Dr. Rick

Mumford, FICD, rick_mumford@dentistry.unc.edu.