Long Term Protecting for Local Health

2022.04.05publication

Long Term Protecting for Local Health

30 years Cultivating Dentists in Cambodia

For more than 30 years, he has been devoted to cultivate dentists in Cambodia and Laos.

In 1991 he started his activities in Cambodia, which was devastated by long civil war. When he visited the faculty of dentistry of the　University of Health Science, he witnessed the sacrificed many teachers caused by the civil war and the fact that even classes could not be held. “What I can do for the reconstruction of dental care,” he said, struggling to collect dental textbooks and dental equipment. He intensely took in charge of dental medicine lecture, including his specialized of periodontology.

While working at University in Japan, he had visited Cambodia about once every two months, until he retired in 2002, in spite of he was the director of the Meikai University hospital. He decided to concentrate on his voluntary activities in Cambodia.

Then 51 years old he reconsidered, “About 70 years old, physical activity is getting weaker. It was the result of thinking about to whom devote the time left as a dentist,”. After that, he resided in Cambodia for about one year half. He loaded the necessary medical equipment into own van and traveled around Cambodia to provide dental care, mainly in depopulated dentistless areas. He greatly contributed to the improvement of dental and oral diseases of rural residents.

He had also focused on cultivated for selected dentists. He trained and gave to more than 20, as the qualification periodontal specialists that were the first case by the Cambodian government. First of all, about 10 enthusiastic dentists were gathered and trained, and then those dentists themselves trained to continue on the next generation. Developing about the system, he said, “We established a good system; The dentists who instructed by him are now active at the centrum of dentistry in Cambodia.”

 

Based on the results, he was focusing to do his best to provide dental and oral education to the general nurses in Laos. Presently he cannot visit the both site due to Covid19, he spends his days teaching local medical personnel online while working at a dental clinic in Tokyo. “When Covid19 subsides, I want to go back to the field as soon as possible and continue my activities.”

◇Click on the image to view in PDF