Providing dental care across countries

(TUALATIN) — When she was young, Dr. Julie Spaniel recalls how her mother enjoyed traveling to developing countries.

One of those places was Jamaica, where she remembers eating at a fancy restaurant on top of a mountain, complete with white tablecloths and chandeliers.

“I remember as a second grader, I walked out on this veranda because we were waiting for our food to come, and everybody's all dressed up. And down the side of the hill, I could hear babies crying and sheet metal shacks clanging, and there were corrugated sheet metal shacks all the way down the side of the mountain,” Spaniel, who runs Summerwood Family Dental in Tualatin, said. “And, of course, we're up there eating this beautiful meal, looking out at the ocean, with the moon over the ocean, and there were people that didn't have food at all.”

What struck her at even that young age was thinking how lucky she was while others were going without.

After graduating from dental school at the University of North Carolina, Spaniel came to Portland to complete her general dentistry residency at Portland Veterans Administration Medical Center. She would then move to Vermont to work for 25 years, eventually joining a local Rotary Club, which had a volunteer group called Hands to Honduras.

Determined to do something to benefit those in need with her dentistry expertise, Spaniel started bringing anesthetic and extractive forceps on her trips there.

While still living in Vermont, Spaniel also connected with a nonprofit organization called One World Brigades and began traveling to Ghana to volunteer her dental services there.

After moving back to Portland in 2018, she set up One World Brigades, a nonprofit organization designed to assist international communities with dental care and education and to open the eyes of youth to the spirit of service.

“I met a woman from Uganda, and she's actually a local physician, and so I started doing some (clinic work) in Uganda with her,” she said.

At the same time, Spaniel continued working in Honduras and brought undergrad students to help do volunteer dental work in Ghana.

In 2018, Spaniel connected with a group from Kenya, and the next year, she began raising money to build a school there.

“I had an opportunity to develop this little school in the Maasai Mara region of Kenya,” said Spaniel, who also works at Oregon Health & Science University's dental school.

Today, the Gilisho Freedom Academy serves 105 students in preschool through the fifth grade.

Once a year, the remote school is turned into a clinic/hospital.

Next March, she will return to the school with a large group of dentists as well as a couple of physicians where thousands of people are expected to visit the clinic for medical and dental treatment.

Each time she’s there, she’s accompanied by Kenyan physician Dr. Joseph Mwuara, whose help and expertise are essential because he can quickly determine if a person has an ailment tied explicitly to that region, such as malaria.

Spaniel recalled that one patient they treated at the clinic had a nasty spider bite on his finger and developed an infection that he would have died from without treatment.

Still, she said it’s important to provide follow-up care as well, she said.

“We can't just go into these places and do this work and leave everybody. We've got to remember when we come back here to our lights and electricity and running water, which they don't have, those people are still there, and they're still dealing with their same issues, and they're living on a dirt floor …” Spaniel said.

Her goal now is to start bringing dental students to volunteer at the school.

Since beginning her nonprofit, Spaniel has clearly defined what happiness means to her.

“If you're looking for true happiness in your life, go make other people happy,” she said. “Whatever it is you want, you give it away, and it's going to come back to you 10 times as much.”

On Sept. 21, from 4 to 7 p.m., a fundraiser is planned at Pete’s Mountain Vineyard & Winery in West Linn, with all proceeds benefiting the school where Spaniel and others are working to improve sanitation facilities, building a solar-powered project for 24/7 power and constructing a smokeless kitchen, replacing the need to cook on the floor.