Public Health Issue - Harvard School of Dental Medicine

Courtesy photographpaho internships, continued“Last summer, I spent seven weeks as an intern at the PAHO inWashington, D.C. My mission was to promote the recognitionof global oral health care issues and combat barriers to accessof health care in vulnerable populations. I was working underPAHO’s Caries Free Communities Initiative, an eight-year planthat represents the sustained effort to reduce the number ofinfections and increase the coverage of services in vulnerable“populations in the Region of the Americas by the year 2015.My internship consisted of researching ways to teach healthcare issues and using this research to design a program totrain dentists and primary health care workers in developingcountries to treat issues relating to oral health. The goal of theworkshop upon implementation was to empower dentists togo into target communities and provide primary care workerswith the skills and confidence needed to diagnose and treatoral diseases, as well as promote preventive measures.Through this internship, I learned about health policyissues and their direct translation to population health, the waysin which decisions are made, and the impact of these decisionson individual lives. I learned how to apply principles ofhealth care policy and epidemiology, such as finding the need,increasing access, and improving the delivery of health care.I came to dental school knowing the ‘what’ and the ‘why,’but the ‘how’ had always eluded me—how was I, as a futuredentist, going to make a real impact? My experience at PAHOgave me an understanding of how I want to make my visioninto a reality. It has allowed me to use my creative thinking towork directly on the problems I see in oral health. My projectinvolved creating an oral health educational module that canbe used to train dentists, who in turn will train primary healthcare workers, who in turn will treat and educate patients. Thetraining workshop took successes from the problem-basedlearningstyle of HSDM, the marketing strategies of the privatesector, and the already established train-the-trainer model.Thus, my colleagues and I were able to design a workshop thatwe believe will bring closer the vision of integrating oral andsystemic health.”—Justin Nguyen (DMD 2013), Summer 2011 PAHO Intern“My summer project at PAHO involved researching the effectsthat a United Nations ban on mercury would have on theavailability of dental amalgam and on dental care worldwide.I attended the INC4 conference in Punta del Este, Uruguay,which dealt with making a globally binding treaty regardingthe use of mercury. I sat in on plenary as well as small groupsessions and saw firsthand the progress being made at theUnited Nations regarding mercury legislations in generaland amalgam in particular. Upon returning from Uruguay,I conducted a literature review on the different forms ofmercury toxicity and the specific ways in which mercuryreleases from amalgam can be harmful to the environmentand to human health. I also reviewed the effectiveness and costof alternative materials to amalgam. Based on my research, Icame up with a number of recommendations for the safe useof amalgam and came to the conclusion that, although it is notcurrently economically feasible to limit the use of amalgam,certain precautions must be taken in order to protect humanhealth.My experience was amazing for a number of reasons. Ilearned about a topic that is becoming increasingly relevantto global oral health. I was able to attend a UN conference inUruguay and learn about public policy and oral health and wasable to attend conferences at PAHO. Most important, I had anumber of wonderful mentors and was able to meet peopleinvolved in different oral health initiatives. The experienceexposed me to the variety of ways one can affect global oralhealth, including through collaboration with governmentaland nongovernmental organizations, research, and publicpolicy. My internship broadened my thinking about how Iwant to be involved in global oral health in the future.” •—Eliezer Brecher (DMD 2015), Summer 2012 PAHO InternJustin Nguyen (DMD 2013) rejoices at the PAHO headquarters inWashington, D.C., at the start of his internship.16 winter 2012–13 • harvard dental bulletin