Alumni Today - University of Toronto

alumni profile
Establishing a
Community of Care
“For us as dental
volunteers, the clinic has
enabled us to gain a new
perspective, and better
understanding, of the
indignities and hardships
of homelessness that we
would never have been
able to appreciate from
the comfort of our home
or office.”
toM harle 8t0, 8t9 Dip ortho, 9t0 Msc
Tom Harle graduated top of his class at
U of T. In addition to being director of the
Mission Dental Clinic, Tom works part-time
as a prosthodontist in his own practice. He
also heads up a registered charity called
Health Teams International (Canada) which
takes medical/dental teams to places such as
Nepal, Vietnam, the Philippines, Sri Lanka,
India, China, Myanmar, North Korea and
Peru. This year they worked in a leper colony
in Calcutta.
this Faith-baseD, VolunteeR-DRiVen, no-Cost Dental
CliniC has establisheD a CoMMunitY oF CaRe that
tRansCenDs soCial bounDaRies.
established just over four years ago in February 2007 through the efforts of
dr. tom harle , the ottawa Mission’s Primary health Care and Dental Clinic
currently has 54 dentists, 1 denturist, 25 hygienists and 25 dental assistants
volunteering on a rotating basis. since opening, volunteers have attended to
over 4,000 patient visits, performed 3,600 extractions and fillings and have made
125 sets of dentures. altogether they have provided over one million dollars
worth of free dental care.
the genesis for the clinic came from a simple comment made by a patient as
tom recounted a trip he had taken to north Korea to help bring basic oral health
care to impoverished communities. the response that there were similar dental
needs right on his doorstep in ottawa challenged him. if he could travel halfway
around the world to provide dental services, surely he could travel across
his own city to do the same thing.
in March 2006, tom approached Diane Morrison, executive Director of the
ottawa Mission, and presented her with a proposal for the clinic. the Mission
had already decided that it was going to open a primary health care clinic and
wanted to incorporate a dental section, but had no idea of how to make that
happen... the timing could not have been better!
8 alumni today SPRING 2011 university of toronto faculty of dentistry