The 2006 Ghana, West Africa BOCA dental mission was an incredible experience. The journey there was long, but it was well worth it. We stayed in a rest house at the Baptist Medical Center, and we traveled by van ride to the individual villages. Once we arrived at each village, we set up our makeshift clinic, using folding camping chairs as our dental chairs and setting up our dental instruments on the chests we brought them in. We provided oral surgical care almost exclusively, and in four days, treated hundreds of patients in the villages of the northern region of Ghana. The experience taught us so much about oral surgery, and we saw things in our four days there that we will likely never see in our four years of dental school. I came back to school feeling much more confident about oral surgery, and I have improved so much in this area of my studies and practice because of my experience on this BOCA mission.

Loni Rodriguez, Class of 2008