TODAY IN ROTARY, Phil Hall, DDS shared his recent adventure in Gulu, Uganda, a small land-locked – and overcrowded - country in Africa where “there is no work, no food and no money.” Uganda, which claims the “source of the Nile,” has an average life expectancy of 57 years and people earn an average of $1.25 per day. Phil described his time in Gula, with Dr. Drew Cahoon, a Rotarian and dentist from Canada, “It is in this area where SGR and several local dentists helped fund a dental clinic in the regional hospital. When we where with the school kids it was what we called outreach to an elementary school. We screened all the 5th and 6th graders for decay. We then selected about 15 patients from the group and did fillings on the spot. I was demonstrating the ART (atraumatic restorative technique) for filling teeth with out dental drills, only hand instruments and no anesthetic. It was part of a dental education program to teach dental health and encourage the children to consider saving their teeth instead of just pulling them, including a program to show them not all dentistry is painful.
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