Kathryn – volunteer dentist

I’ve done some volunteering in the past, working with the homeless and also I’ve done some work in Africa. But it’s been quite a while since I’ve done that and I’ve always wanted to get back into doing some volunteering, so working for Dentaid was a good way to do that. I love the fact that it is kind of local and helping people in the UK.

There’s been quite a big, varied bunch of people we’ve seen today. Predominantly we’ve been helping people who have got pain.So I’ve done a little bit of accessing, dressing, some scaling and lots of general advice about oral care.

Volunteering for Dentaid has certainly exceeded my expectations. I’ve had everything that I’ve needed today and the nurse that I’ve been working with has been great and also the support staff doing all the behind the scenes stuff have been brilliant and supplied me nicely with lots of cups of tea!

I didn’t experience any problems with working on the mobile dental unit, I had a minor blip with the chair, but that was easily overcome. And again, I found all of the equipment that I needed and I felt that I was able to provide the dentistry that I wanted to offer today.

It’s definitely something I would like to do again, in fact I’m already signed up to do another clinic!

I think it’s a really valuable thing to do. If you’ve got a skill set that you can use to help other people and you have got some time to offer in order to do that, then it is a very fulfilling thing to be able to do. So I would definitely recommend it.