Nine students from CEU Cardenal Herrera University´s bilingual Dentistry degree have participated in a voluntary dentistry project in Nepal. The students from UCH-CEU, in collaboration with Kathmandú University and a local NGO, have treated children and adults from different communities. They used their knowledge of dentistry in the treatment and prevention of dental caries and of periodontal diseases. The students from CEU-UCH took part in more than 2000 treatments over the course of ten days including tooth extractions, fillings, teeth cleanings, and various workshops focusing on dental health for children and adults.
It is a charity project, that ran throughout August, in collaboration with Dr. Belén Merck, a professor from the Health Sciences Faculty at CEU Cardenal Herrera University, Professor B. Regmi, Dean of the Pharmacy Faculty at Kathmandú, and Drs. Chang and Yu-Hue who assisted them in this dental health project.
The students travelled with approximately 300 kilos of equipment; more than 2000 toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste, instruments, 2 dental chairs….some of which was donated by CEU-UCH´s University Dental Clinic in order to ensure that treatments carried out by the students were of a high quality.
Over the course of the ten days they travelled to Kathmandu, Dhuseni, Bhaktapur, and Sauruha Deughat. They encountered some complications on this humanitarian mission. For example, they had difficulty accessing some communities and there was a scarcity of human and material healthcare resources. However, the people in these places welcomed the trainee dentists warmly and thanked them for the work that they did.
This is the second charity project which students from CEU-UCH´s bilingual dentistry degree have participated in. During the summer of 2013, four of the students who travelled to Nepal were involved in a similar project in the Philippines where they treated some 400 patients, carried out 150 tooth extractions, 280 teeth cleanings, and repaired 80 teeth. This was an experience that they would be happy to repeat as it has helped them to further their dentistry knowledge and to offer their services to those who need it. It also gave them the opportunity to get to know a new culture.
