I was surprised to see one of the clinic doctors down in the dumps.
I’m here in Roatan, Honduras, with the St. Luke’s mission team to offer my dental services at Clinica Esperanza. After spending a couple of hours with “Dr. Diana” on Monday, I felt compelled to tell her what I was noticing.
“Your flame is out a little bit,” I said. “Your passion doesn’t seem to be there. Are you tired? Is this such hard work on you?”
She replied, “It really is.”
She told us that, just last week, a two-year-old child was brought into the clinic with infected front teeth. They had to hold that screaming baby down to take those teeth out.
Dr. Diana deals with heartbreaking medical situations all the time here on the island of Roatan. She’s used to it. But in this case, she said it really, really put a damper on her drive to be a dentist.
In fact, she almost walked out that day on her profession… walked out on the island.
I felt so sorry for her. So today, we brought a little music into the clinic. What a difference it made.
The entire day was just fantastic. We were having fun – laughing with every patient. I was singing to every patient because that’s how I am at my dental practice at home. We discussed cases together. She was asking me about certain x-rays, I was asking her questions about her experience. We both learned from each other.
At the end of the day, Dr. Diana was just beaming. Others noticed too. She said, “The Medical Director offered to send me to the United States to spend a week at your dental clinic, if that’s ok with you.”
“Absolutely.”
I told her I feel like one of the reasons I’m here, truthfully, was to somehow bring a fire back to her profession – to bring that spark back to dentistry for her – get her back in the groove.
I thought I was coming here simply to be “giving myself” to these residents with humility. But I wound up being “called” to be this goofy, outgoing person in order to bring some fire back to this clinic.
That’s what was needed here, I suppose… and the weirder the better.
– Dr. Mike Wallace
