Dr. CJ Yoon recently returned from a place few people have experienced. Yoon is a lieutenant colonel in Washington’s Air National Guard. He’s also a Spokane dentist and director of Eastern Washington University’s RIDE program, Regional Initiatives in Dental Education.
Every spring, as part of his military obligation, he serves a deployment somewhere. Last year, he went to the Middle East for three months. Last month, for two weeks, he and a small group of colleagues went north to Alaska.
This interview is edited for length and clarity.
CJ Yoon: It's called Akhiok, small village, only 40 people, maybe up to 45 for some people that come there for only summertime, and then they leave. But at the time when we arrived, there is around 40 population, the village people, resident stay there.
DN: There must have been a real need for dental care there.
CJY: Right, they do have some dental care yearly basis, but at the same time they do need more routine care or emergency care, not only dental but medical. Our team was like 10 people, including nurse practitioner and dentist, some dental tech and medical assistant, and then some admin people and some communication people too. And then we have optometry, optometrist came there together. So we actually provide all eye care, dental care, medical care together.
DN: Do you have to bring all of your own gear?
CJY: Yes, luckily they have some clinic that already built in before, so we utilize their facility, but at the same time we brought our consumable items, and at the same time some instrument, especially dental, we have many boxes that we have to pack it.
So for 10 people, all of us, one Black Hawk helicopter took us to get there, and another helicopter brought the instrument boxes, including our bags and everything together.
DN: Do military teams go there fairly regularly, maybe a semi-annual or an annual?
CJY: Semi-annual, like every two years we go there. I asked them how many times you saw us and they said as far as they remember, it's six plus times. I cannot even describe how much they welcome us. All the kids, and actually one third of the village, 10 plus people, came out and welcomed us with so many posters and everything. They're so excited to see us, and not only for the medical, dental, optometry care, but at the same time, those kids are very passionate to play with us for many different sports, actually, too. So a lot of interaction between us and their children.
DN: So you did a lot of work and you played a lot of sports.
CJY: Yeah, we did the hiking, we did basketball, baseball, and some volleyball, and then we went fishing, too, so yeah.
DN: If they're only seeing doctors and dentists once or twice a year, I'm guessing you had some fairly difficult things to do, procedures to do, because of lack of dental care?
CJY: So that's what I expected in the beginning. I expected a lot of surgery, or some extractions, and some wisdom teeth, because there are young children there, too, and then a lot of pediatric patients that may need a lot of extensive dental care. That's what I expected. But, they're actually continuing care from many 12-plus years before. So I think most of the urgent things are already taken care of it. I provide a lot of the maintenance or the periodic care. At the same time, yes, I pull some wisdom teeth as well, but more like some routine care that I provide. I was actually amazed and surprised by other teams that already went, came here, and then just took care of so many different things. So it is working.
We are helping community, and the community actually get better and better and better.
DN: Beyond the dental care, was the general medical state actually pretty good among the people who live there?
CJY: Yeah. I mean, of course, they cannot have good fresh food or all fresh milk and all those things. They especially have good resources for all the fishes that they can go out and fishing all the time. And then the knowledge and then all the education level are actually pretty good.
DN: So for 11 days, you were a small town country dentist and doing just exactly like some of your students are going to do when they go out in their fourth year rural rotations.
CJY: Yes, so our education, our model, the RIDE program itself, is we educate the student from the small rural community and then we educate them, we replace them back to the community to serve there too. 80% of our graduates actually go back to the small community and they actually serve there too. So it's somewhat very interconnected with my experience and then their model and their vision too. So it is really great that these students can see maybe indirectly or directly through my experience.
Read more about CJ Yoon's Arctic experience.
