Dentaltown October 2022 - 65

35+ Years
OF TRAVEL AND SERVICE
We asked Dr. Bob Koff to recap all the dental projects
he's traveled for during his nearly 40-year career.
We weren't quite prepared for the full list!
May 1985: My fi rst trip to China with my (now ex-) wife, Pat.
She was doing a project with Project Hope to set up a neonatal/
pediatric ICU in Hangzhou for a month. Project Hope didn't have
a dental program, so I created one at my own expense.
An electrosurgery demonstration during a
monthlong CDC project in Tomsk, Russia, in 1995.
not allowed in a private clinic because it was
controlled by the state government. When
a patient from the U.S. consulate wanted
a gold crown on my recommendation on
a posterior tooth, he asked why I couldn't
send the case to my lab in Colorado to get
the gold crown made. I told him Russian
customs would most likely take the gold
crown as it entered the country, so that
wouldn't work. He said they wouldn't do
that if it was sent through the diplomatic
pouch and voila-that's how we did it!
On a personal level, most Russians we met
and became friends with were pleasant folks
who all wanted the same things in life-good
schools for their kids, opportunities to
advance, and a life of good friends and family.
Wars and government interference in our
lives are things the general population isn't in
favor of, and often are a result of individuals
craving wealth and power.
That sounds like a lot of windows
where you were away from your
single-doctor practice in Colorado
Springs. What arrangements would
you have in place for when you were
overseas to help make sure your
patients didn't feel abandoned?
Th e early trips were usually for a month
at a time, and I fi gured out that the key was
to keep my overhead low and manageable.
May 1986: We returned to China, and this time added
Shanghai to the list. I asked four dental companies to pay
$1,500 each to fund the trip, and spent a month doing
lectures and demonstrations.
June 1986: Whaledent sponsored me for a week in South Korea
to provide lectures to dentists in seven cities, from Seoul to
Busan (in the south).
April 1987: The third trip to China lasted for a month, and
included my mom. (Pat had a new job, so she couldn't take the
time off.) The trip included Hangzhou, Shanghai, Xian and Beijing
for lectures and demonstrations. Dentsply and Whaledent split
the cost of the trip, about $3,500 each.
September 1988: I did a volunteer dental project for a month
in Kathmandu with a Colorado engineer who had devoted his
retirement to help the people of Nepal. Another dentist and I
worked in clinics set up around the city, including at an orphanage
and a neighborhood social center.
January 1991: The beginning of taking a full year off with an
" around-the-world " airline ticket began with a volunteer dental
project on Ambergris Caye, Belize. We'd been on a diving trip
and noticed a medical/dental clinic built by the Lions Club next
to the runway. My real estate buddy, Steve, was my on-the-jobtrained
assistant and we provided free dental care, sometimes in
exchange for meals, scuba diving, windsurfi ng rentals, etc.
February 1991: I did a volunteer dental project with a retired
American dentist in Honduras. The remote setting sometimes
involved a two-hour canoe ride to outlying villages.
March 1991: I did volunteer dentistry in Antigua, Guatemala.
I lived with a family and took Spanish lessons at a local school in
the mornings, then did volunteer dentistry at the local hospital
alongside a Guatemalan dentist in the afternoons.
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Dentaltown October 2022

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