Cobra Gold Site 1

Today was the first day of our exercise. We showed up to an elementary school--where some Army guys have been building a school building for the past week--and set up our clinics. We had a triage area and from triage, patients went to Family Practice, Pediatrics, Dental, and Optometry. Optometry was the busiest as everyone seemed to want new glasses. It was great to finally start doing some dentistry! The people were awesome and very grateful. They were very stoic with their pain. For the most part, the teeth weren't quite as bad as I had expected: a lot like the really poor I saw in residency, though some were very bad. I guess the difference was that the poor dental state was the norm with them rather than the exception in residency. One little girl had a severely decayed tooth that had formed a fistula through the jaw and out the side of her check. Poor thing.I was happy to be able to use my specialty and help some of the kids, especially ones that the Oral Surgeon wasn't able to extract a tooth on. I was able, with the help of a great interpreter, to help the boy complete the procedure with minimal trouble.

I even got to play a little soccer with a few little boys before we left!
We did a lot of hard work and then packed everything up and returned to our hotel. We go back out in the morning to another school.

After we got back a few of us went out to finally see a bit of Thailand. We took a couple of interpreters and a driver and ended up at a hot spring. Though we were not prepared for this, we didn't let it keep us from enjoying it. At least until 50 Russian tourists showed up in bikinis and speedos! Luckily it wasn't a Japanese Onsen and people kept their clothes on!

Then the interpreters took us to a restaurant on the River Kwai. We let them order and ended up with some great fish dishes and I even tried fried frog! Not my favorite. This fried fish dish was my favorite. I took a lot of pictures of the people and here are two of my favorites, one old and one young. This little boy was watching the older boys play soccer. I grabbed him and let him play a little and then he retreated back over to watch. They are such cute kids.