As part of a team of 10 medical professionals, Jami Smith ’13, associate director of the Physician’s Assistant program; Shannon Diallo, assistant professor and academic coordinator of Medical Science; and Emilee Thomas ’13M, PA and Stephanie Joseph ’18M, PA provided dental care to more than 300 children and their families in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala from Feb. 11 to 18.

The team met with parents, school administrators, and teachers to understand community needs, focusing primarily on deficiencies in health education. Over the course of the week, they provided oral and hand hygiene education to approximately 320 children and distributed more than 1,100 toothbrushes, 950 tubes of toothpaste, and 450 bars of soap. The group also provided much-needed water filters to eight families, giving each family enough to produce clean water for an entire year.

Additionally, the team provided nutrition and hygiene education for mothers, sexual health and substance abuse education to teenagers, and body system education to second and third graders.

This is the second year representatives from Arcadia’s PA program assisted with dental and health services in Guatemala.