University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Dentistry
Spring, 2010 [ Download PDF version of this article ]
COD alum falls in love with Rwanda, returns to teach basic dental care
On an African safari in 2006, Dr. Richard T. Reckmeyer traveled through Tanzania and Kenya and set out to trek for gorillas in Rwanda. But even before he reached the gorillas, he says, he fell in love with the country, its leaders, and its people.
He first noticed the impeccably clean roads. A guide told him that plasticshad been outlawed and that one day a month citizens, including the country’s president, pick up roadside trash. He said he also noticed the hopefulness of the people, especially the women and children, despite widespread poverty and the horror of genocide.
Since that first visit, Reckmeyer, a retired Phoenix, AZ, dentist and a 1979 graduate of the UNMC College of Dentistry, has returned to Rwanda four times. He is planning a fifth trip in June when he hopes to conduct a three-week program to teach nurses and community health workers how to deliver basic dental services.
“Because the entire health infrastructure was destroyed during the 1994 genocide, when 1 million people were killed in 100 days, the supply is scarce and the demand is astronomical for rural oral health care,” Reckmeyer said. “You get to the age when you want to give back,” he said, “and it can be here in the United States, or it can be in Rwanda.”
Reckmeyer’s goal is to teach nurses in community health centers to perform simple extractions, complete basic cleanings, and train community health workers to teach prevention. He plans to work with public schools and Home Based Management Care, which is provided by the government.
The first training will be offered at the Ruhengeri Hospital in the Musanze District of the Northern Province. It will cover health histories, oral examinations, dental anatomy of baby and permanent teeth, sterilization, prevention, cleaning techniques with oral hygiene instruction, injections, and simple extractions. His five-year goal is to have all 750 nurses trained in all 375 districts.
Reckmeyer, who retired in 2001 because of disability after three rotator cuff surgeries in one year, outlined his plan in October to students, faculty, and administrators at the College of Dentistry. He said he needs help from volunteer dentists, hygienists, and students, as well as donations of money, instruments, and supplies. He could use scalers, curettes, elevators, and forceps. Reckmeyer based his training course on the Kenya Medical Mission conducted for six years in rural Kenya by two Phoenix dentists and their wives—Dr. Jerry Denning, and his wife, Mikell, a hygienist, and Dr. Wilson Lathrop and his wife, Bonnie. To develop his course, Reckmeyer, who also has a MBA and has taught at community colleges, met with faculty, administration, and students at Kigali Health Institute—the only dental education facility in Rwanda— and other government and health officials.
The ratio of oral health care providers to the population in Rwanda was 155 providers to 10.5 million people, as of March 2009, and most of the providers worked in urban areas, Reckmeyer said. In two districts he surveyed, between 92 percent and 95 percent of the oral health care needs amounted to simple extractions and basic cleanings. Simple extractions were the second most common service provided in community health centers in a third district surveyed.
To volunteer or donate money or supplies, contact Reckmeyer at (623) 979-7555 or richard.reckmeyer@cox.net. Learn more at his Web site at http://www.rrdental.org.
