World Wide Web Brings Global Information to Overseas Students’ Fingertips

Richard Bebermeyer, D.D.S., associate professor of restorative dentistry at The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston, recently returned from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he taught dental students to use today’s technology to learn lessons of infection control and evidence-based dentistry.

Bebermeyer visited Vietnam as part of Dentistry Overseas, an American Dental Association-sponsored volunteer organization that sends North American dentists to less developed parts of the world to share their knowledge. In Ho Chi Minh City, he was assigned to the Institute of Odonto-Stomatology, which offers a master’s degree in public health to dentists and faculty members at the school.

“The first two days in Vietnam were surprising – terrible noise and air pollution, horrible traffic, overcrowded conditions, and extreme heat,” Bebermeyer said. “But once I got used to it, I realized that it’s an amazing place, and the people are wonderful. I feel like they are our friends as well as our colleagues.”

Bebermeyer was particularly struck by the stark contrast between urban and rural oral health care in Vietnam.

“I saw a few beautiful clinics with wonderful equipment in a few cities, but they are very expensive and unavailable to the rural population,” he said. “Only about 10 percent of the population gets fluoridated water, and there are so few dentists that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get adequate care if you aren’t a relatively wealthy urban dweller.”

Public health education in Vietnam faces challenges typical of developing countries.

“As far as infection control goes, the students I worked with had reasonable knowledge on how to control diseases like malaria, hepatitis, tuberculosis and HIV,” Bebermeyer said. “But they didn’t always have the equipment they needed to implement effective measures. Add to that the fact that the whole country desperately needs resources such as journals and textbooks, and the challenge can seem overwhelming.”

At one point during the course, Bebermeyer wanted to show his students information on the Internet, but the dental school’s only computer with online access was not working. So Bebermeyer took all of his students to an Internet café in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, which opened a whole new world for them.

“Only three of the students had ever done an Internet search before, and the others were amazed at the wealth of information – such as evidence-based dentistry databases – available on the Web,” said Bebermeyer. “The country is opening up, and I didn’t notice any controls over what a person could access on the Internet – so I hope the students will be able to use that resource, now that they know it’s there for them.”

Bebermeyer hopes to return to Vietnam soon, and is actively looking forward to his next international visit. He feels that he learned as much from his hosts as they learned from him.

“I’ve always wanted to learn about foreign cultures, and I’ve always been a traveler,” he said. “It opens our eyes when we go to other places and see how people live. I really owe a debt of gratitude to the International Office here at UT-Houston, as well as Drs. Martin Hobdell and Peter Triolo, who were largely responsible for me being able to visit Vietnam. It was a wonderful opportunity.”

Martin Hobdell, D.D.S., chair of UT-Houston’s department of public health and hygiene, and Peter Triolo, D.D.S., chair of the restorative dentistry and biomaterials department, are both actively involved in helping people attain better dental care. Hobdell spends much of his free time visiting remote areas of Asia, Central America and Africa in order to attend to the dental health those populations.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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