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and largest city, Bishkek. There continues to be high demand by private dentists for evening classes where our local staff lecturers, who have finished this program, to come teach. For the training to be sustainable, we have created an organization “The Center for the Development of General Dentistry," that allows us to charge patients for treatment, something still not permitted at government clinics or training institutions. This year the self-sustainability of the Bishkek program is up to 70 to 80 percent.
As a result of the program's achievements, the Medical Institute asked us to set up a similar training program in Osh, the second biggest city, in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan. Four of our earlier
There are three local dentists, two local dental hygienists, one hygienist consultant from Korea, and two local administrators who make up the working staff in the Osh clinic. In December, a container of donated equipment, supplies, and medications was received, which will enable the Osh clinic to make a good start. The shipment had been put together by STLI supporters in the US, and members of STLI's Board and US office, and was shipped by a US government program, Operation Hope.
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Imagine a visit to your dentist . . . only instead of one person, there are several different dentists to see. In the former Soviet Union, although dental service was free, it was done in a system that was over-specialized. And the state-sponsored education of dentists today continues in that approach. This means dentists are only qualified to work in a specific area of dentistry such as surgery, filling, periodontics, etc. And yet with economic reforms, private dental clinics are everywhere, so there is a great need for a more generalist approach to dental education.
In
the Spring of 2000, STLI and the Medical Institute of the Ministry of Health
of the Kyrgyz Republic established a dental training clinic for the purpose
of re-training Kyrgyz dentists as general practitioners. Based on this agreement,
STLI developed a one-year “Training of Trainers” Program. Every
year, through this program, four dentist-lecturers were trained, with an official
certificate given by the Kyrgyz government to work and teach in the area of
general dentistry. The program has also been expanded to the training of dental
hygienists and dental technicians. So far 15 dentist-lecturers, 4 hygienist-lecturers,
about 200 dentists, 30 hygienists, and 20 dental technicians have been trained
through this program in the capital,
trainees are from Osh, and three of them are now working in the Osh general dentistry-training program, which opened in May 2006.