A Laboratory Of A Different Kind

~ Friday 25th July

My placement in Malawi has officially drawn to a close.

In some ways I'm sad because it's been such an invaluable experience and I've seen and done so much. In other ways, I'm glad because this last week wasn't what I wanted it to be so fingers crossed, my dental placement in Tanzania is tons better and until then, I have two weeks to spend with the family. After 4 weeks of 6am starts and long days at the hospital, it's nice to have a break.

Yesterday I was in restorative dentistry where I saw fillings, scaling and polish, and root canal treatment. Ok technically, I was meant to see the above (according to wikipedia and my experience in the UK) but I only saw one filling and the rest of the patients were all in for scaling and polish.

To be brutally honest, I didn't see anything that was different to England; the materials they use and the techniques employed are all pretty standard. I think conservative dentistry simply plays a much bigger role in the dental field back home than it does here, the sole reason being that the public leave it far too late when it comes to dental check ups. So by the time they seek professional medical advice, their teeth and/or oral health has deteriorated to such a degree, that the tooth in question cannot be saved (thus needing to be extracted) or their gum disease has progressed to a greater critical problem, in most cases, a tumour. Ultimately, there's just a very small demand for restorative dentistry because there's nothing left to "restore".

I then shifted into the dental laboratory to spend my final day watching how dentures are made. They also make crowns, veneers (prosthodontics) and braces (orthodontics) but patients are charged heavy for the above so it's very rare for the dental technicians to have to make them. Dentures not so much because the elderly inevitably require them but prosthodontics and orthodontics are very uncommon. I only got to see the taking of impressions from two patients that will be made into moulds and later dentures, but otherwise I didn't see anything else.

I would try and embellish this post and exaggerate what I saw, but a) I'm feeling lazy b) it's not worth it and c) it wouldn't be a correct reflection on my experience.