Local family dentist takes her skills to Guatemala

THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Dr. Erica K. Baker, D.D.S was invited to join a medical and dental mission group with a church in the Dallas area to provide dental care and health education to a small village in Guatemala.

Dr. Baker and her associate closed Sterling Ridge Cosmetic and Family Dentistry the last week of June for the eight-day trip to a small clinic in Guatemala. There they worked 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day extracting and filling teeth.

“Things didn’t always work perfectly, but I was impressed because I’ve heard stories of people going and working out of rocking chairs and church pews,” Dr. Baker said. “It can be pretty rough, and you’re just doing extractions, so I was happy we were able to offer more fillings and just educating people.”

Although the only procedures they performed were extractions and fillings, they decided it would be more impactful to provide patients with education on dental care. Dr. Baker’s associate, Bridget Klesel, joined her for the trip and helped provide hygiene education and disease prevention to the Guatemalans.

“I think that they’re a little more naive over there in the sense that people don’t get sick as much over here,” Dr. Baker said. “The don’t have that fear element of getting a disease or getting someone’s germs, so they don’t really think about when to take off gloves or whether things are properly sterilized.”

The patients were charged $1.50 by the clinic and were sent back to Dr. Baker and her team for treatment. They were told to only work on one tooth per patient, but they found that task difficult when they saw their needs, especially when they noticed that some of them had two teeth next to each other that needed an equal amount of treatment. Other times, it was children coming in that needed a full mouth of new teeth. Dr. Baker said she didn’t want to interfere with clinical business, but she also didn’t want to leave several problems untreated.

“What we were doing there was really more of a volunteer basis, so we’d take out three teeth and write down one,” Dr. Baker said. “The people who worked there didn’t get in trouble for not making sure that we didn’t do too much, and then the patients didn’t pay for more than they could afford.”

Amongst all the needs of the village, Dr. Baker discovered that they did not have a highly developed education system. Most kids, she said, don’t make it past the fifth grade, don’t often finish high school, but even if they make it through college, its value is the equivalent of a high school diploma in the states.

“Anytime dentists come from the U.S., the people that live there really flee to that area and they just kind of migrate in because this is going to be potentially more advanced care, is how they see it,” Dr. Baker said. “They’re thinking our education system will provide us with more experience and knowledge.”

Upon their arrival, Dr. Baker and her team were a little nervous because they felt like strangers and were concerned whether or not their patients would be comfortable or if they would trust their group. However, by the end of the week, Dr. Baker said they were getting hugs from their patients, and they were very grateful for the treatment they received. They were also able to break down the language barriers between the team and the Spanish and Mayan speaking locals.

“They only knew so much English, and we only knew so much Spanish or Mayan,” Dr. Baker said. “A lot of non-verbal communication can be misunderstood. By the end of it you realize they’re the kindest, sweetest people, and they’re just trying to be polite and accommodate us and understand us.”

Despite having to walk everywhere, little to no running water and no air conditioning, Dr. Baker said she would love to go back and that she admired the way of life and simplicity. She noticed that people are happy with less, and life is not about the luxury of material possessions.

“I missed that environment, and I’d like to go back,” Dr. Baker said. “I think it’s refreshing for you because it reminds you why you do what you do, why I like dentistry and what I like about life just in general being able to go somewhere where people don’t have what we have and see how happy they are and then being able to do something for them and help them.”

Dr. Baker graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences from Texas A&M University and then studied dentistry in Houston at University of Texas Dental School. She completed her residency in 2007 at a practice in Pennsylvania and got a job right out of school learning about high-end dentistry and patient experience. She opened Sterling Ridge Cosmetic and Family Dentistry four years ago. In addition to running her own practice, Dr. Baker volunteers in the Houston area doing free dental work on kids through Dentistry from the Heart and other organizations.

For more information about Sterling Ridge Cosmetic and Family Dentistry, located at 9955 Woodlands Parkway, Suite B, visit the website provided below.