Oral Surgeon in Auburn, CA

The Long Road Home for this Oral Surgeon

sLeighty — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 10:34:43 +0000

I’m trying to collect and summarize my thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind. Speaking for myself, Papua New Guinea would be a (impossibly) hard place to live, given my life to this point. That fact commands an awesome respect toward Fred Hargesheimer for his vision, efforts, money, and especially the years he [...]

Papua New Guinea to San Francisco

sLeighty — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:06:10 +0000

In case you’re wondering, I tossed and turned for a couple of hours due to excitement for the trip home. We had our alarms set for 2:30 am and our 5 jeep caravan left the guesthouse at 3:30 am. One has to be here to really appreciate the roads here. Pavement gives way to gravel, [...]

Ewasse School Day 7

sLeighty — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:04:10 +0000

I had the best nights’ sleep ever last night, as I was so exhausted I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow.

We are not doing patient care today as our schedule is filled with tearing down our clinic, packing for our early departure (we leave the guesthouse about 3:30 am), learning about Hargy [...]

Ewasse Clinic Day 6

sLeighty — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:40:41 +0000

No earthquakes, no power outage, no rain, and no new bug bites — this day is getting off to a good start. We all shared Ann’s PNG honey on our toast this morning since she learned that honey can’t pass through Australian customs.

We’ve nearly finished treating all of the schoolchildren in the three target [...]

Ewasse Clinic Day 5

sLeighty — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:19:01 +0000

Karen and I were just stirring this morning about 6:00 am and were greeting by an earthquake (5.7 magnitude) that gently but solidly shook our guesthouse on poles. We felt a smaller one an hour later. Others reported feeling half a dozen smaller tremors throughout the night. A 6.2 quake struck at 3:00 pm this [...]

Ewasse Clinic Day 4

sLeighty — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:44:48 +0000

Today was the longest and busiest day. We arrived at our clinic and were working before 8:00 am with some backlogged patients from yesterday and a few volunteers from the community.

The 45 schoolkids from Naou arrived at 10:00 am (it is a two hour road trip from Naou to Ewasse) and we were determined [...]

Sunday 16 October in Biala

sLeighty — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:22:08 +0000

Sunday 16 October is another bright sunny day in PNG. After a leisurely breakfast, William and Penare drove us to the Ewasse United Methodist Church right next door to the Ewasse School in Biala. As we are becoming accustomed to being treated as special guests, plastic chairs were provided for us so we wouldn’t have [...]

Saturday at Harge Palm Oil, Ltd

sLeighty — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 11:07:39 +0000

Although we had no clinical responsibilities today, our team pretty much acted as usual. For instance, Dr. Marti gets up and goes for a walk before sunup. The Weiss’ are outside on the porch with coffee and tea at 6:00, watching birds and quietly visiting. Mike Ferguson rambles in next and turns the TV on [...]

Ewasse School Day 3

sLeighty — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 10:51:27 +0000

Greetings from West New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. We’ve had 24 hours without rain now and the sun was bright and hot and straight overhead. We had our earliest and most efficient day of dental work today, and we worked pretty much straight through until 2:00 pm when a special memorial service was planned. [...]

Ewasse School Day 2

sLeighty — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:31:49 +0000

Thunder, lightning, and sheets of rain all night long was the backdrop for today’s work. The pop-up tent that was erected yesterday was mostly flat on the ground from the weight of the downpour. After jury-rigging the tent with the bent poles back up again, the clinic was ready to start screening and treating patients.

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