What I learned from Volunteering in Guatemala

Twice a year, an integrated team of medical and dental volunteers from PDS Health travels to the impoverished village of Xenacoj, Guatemala to serve nearly 150 people who face significant barriers to care. These volunteers started making the bi-annual treks to change lives – only to find that the lives they changed were their own. 

My husband and I have been part of the team providing medical and dental services to the community at the PDS Health Foundation Clínica Dental in Xenacoj, and recently began sponsoring the travel cost of volunteer medical assistants who bring medical expertise, medication and hope to this 10,000-person village.

My husband and I have been part of the team providing medical and dental services to the community at the PDS Health Foundation Clínica Dental in Xenacoj, and recently began sponsoring the travel cost of volunteer medical assistants who bring medical expertise, medication and hope to this 10,000-person village.

During these missions, I learned about caring for people with very limited access to dental and health care and the challenges they face, saw examples of the importance of Mouth-Body Connection, and experienced the impact that people can have on one another:

Very quickly, we identified that diabetes in that community was rampant. We ended up going to local pharmacies throughout Guatemala, and bought everything off the shelves. There is no clean water, so it’s cheaper for them to drink soda than water. You see babies sipping on soda all day, so their teeth are affected, the levels of diabetes are affected. 

People travel sometimes three hours to get to the clinic, so when we’re there, we make sure to see everyone. We give vaccines when we are able, and address oral health to help people who are unable to chew, for example. We see them about everything. We ask the questions that you’d get at your annual physical, but then there are different questions: Do you have access to food? Are you in a safe environment? Do you fear for your life? 

PDS Health has always promoted the Mouth-Body Connection for holistic health. It’s who we are here in the United States. And so, it was natural that we would bring integrated care to Guatemala. When you are there, you can really see how significant the connection is. You see poor oral care affecting diabetes, for example, and vice-versa. The fact that we can actually help people from a whole-health perspective in Guatemala is incredible. The medical team took the bottom floor of the clinic, and the dental team took the top floor, and people file in one by one. We stay until we’ve seen everyone, and we provide them with the best care and support we can.

We provide supplies like food and, of course, toothbrushes, toothpaste and water. The husband of one of our dentist partners, Dr. Miran Ho, owns a bunk bed company. So, we have been driving to the back of this village and hiking up mountains, carrying donated bunk beds, which we then go and assemble for kids living in corrugated metal homes.

There are many stories, but one that stands out is of a young woman who came to us who was suicidal. We see a lot of depression, in addition to diabetes and malnutrition, in the village. Her situation shook us, and Dr. Ho took her under her care. Today, this woman is in nursing school and focused on her future.

Most people know to go to the dentist twice a year. But if you ask people how often they see their primary care doctor, they’ll tell you that they go when they’re sick. So, we don’t have healthcare, we have sick care. That’s what I love about our mission. We are committed to making the change from sick care to true healthcare through the integration of dental and systemic health. We see it when we are in Guatemala, and we see it in our own practices here in the U.S. I feel truly blessed to be a part of it.