THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 9, 1994 TAG: 9409080179
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
IT TAKES VIRGINIA Beach dentist A. Clayborn Hendricks less than 15 minutes to get from his Little Neck home to his Virginia Beach Boulevard office each morning.
On his vacation last summer it took him a bit longer to get to work. About five hours longer, not including the air time he logged just getting to the country where he was going to ply his trade.
That would be Honduras, the wedge of land tucked between Guatemala and Nicaragua, a hop, skip and large jump northwest of the Panama Canal and south of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
Hendricks had flown to the capitol city of Tegucigalpa, then ridden a rickety school bus with mismatched fenders through dry river beds and up paths more appropriate for mountain goats to the tiny hamlet of Aguanque Terique.
Here at home he sees patients by appointment, leaving enough gaps most days to accommodate broken fillings or abscessed teeth.
In Honduras his patients stood patiently in line from shortly after sun-up until shortly before sun-down, returning the next morning if the make-shift clinic had to shut down before they were seen.
In Virginia Beach, Hendricks fills cavities and fits crowns in his tastefully decorated suite of offices in a tidy neo-colonial building.
In Aguanque Terique he gently extracted painfully diseased teeth while patients sat in a battered dental chair on the porch of a small mission station.
And while his Virginia Beach hygienists and dental assistants are highly skilled, his helper in Honduras was a college student with no medical background but - like Hendricks and the more than 40 other doctors, dentists and support staff who made the trip - a real desire to serve.
Each also was grateful to the Red Bank Baptist Church in Chattanooga for the opportunity to engage in such meaningful work.
``I had read an article about Dr. Don Reynolds (one of the participating dentists) in a dental journal and applied to become part of their team,'' Hendricks said.
Although the mission station where they worked and the project itself fall under the umbrella of the Southern Baptist Mission Board, Hendricks, a Presbyterian, was selected to join the group.
For the most part, the five dentists on the team (three American and two Honduran) worked without such basic necessities as X-rays, strong lights or suctioning equipment.
A videotape that Hendricks brought back shows him hunched over a chair, much too low for his 6-foot-plus frame, peering into the mouth of his patient with the help of flashlight.
What little electricity was available was designated primarily for the use of the medical doctors performing delicate cataract surgery.
Working with donated supplies, equipment and medication, the five dentists saw 440 patients in the week they were there. Most of the procedures were extractions of teeth, which must have caused a great deal of pain.
``The patients were wonderful,'' Hendricks said. ``They were so accepting of our treatment and very appreciative.''
In what little spare time he had, the Virginia Beach dentist discovered a common bond with the young Hondurans.
``They love soccer,'' said Hendricks, whose 13-year-old son Harlan has played in local leagues for years. He brought home videos of youngsters playing the game everywhere from grassy hillsides to stone-paved courtyards.
Despite such inconveniences as toilet facilities that would have been considered primitive by Civil War standards, and showers fashioned from little more than buckets, staples and plastic sheeting, Hendricks hopes to repeat his missionary work next year.
``When you go to a near third world country,'' he said, ``it makes you realize how great the United States is.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
Dentist A. Clayborn Hendricks worked in a make-shift clinic in
Honduras, where patients lined up at dawn.
by CNB