San Luis Obispo for a MONTH

Thankfully, things have been going pretty smoothly in school.  I am on-track for an on-time graduation and have been finding more and more spare time to volunteer and get involved with off-campus projects.  One volunteer opportunity that fell into my lap last year was an chance to help start-up a dental clinic in downtown Los Angeles.  The clinic, The Center for Community Health Downtown Los Angeles is located in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row, a 10-block area where more than 18,000 homeless individuals reside at any given time.  The new dental wing opened in February of last year and myself and another dental student names Susana were in charge of running the weekly clinic with supervision from our faculty facilitator Dr. Santosh.  After a successful year, we were in charge of naming our successors with the hopes that they would carry the torch and be just as committed to helping the iunderserved population of Los Angeles.  This leads me to the reason for this post:  San Luis Obispo.

Last year my class was given an opportunity to apply for a 4 week externship position in the central coast.  The only limitation was that you had to meet a certain benchmark in your graduation requirements to be eligible to apply.  Fortunately, I met the requirements and was offered the externship for the entire month of February.  The good news was that I would be staying in a nice hotel in Pismo Beach and would only be required to purchase my own food, everything else (including gas) would be paid for.  The bad news was that I would have to leave Cheryl behind because of her work.  :(

What a great set-up!
Microwave, Mini-Fridge, Flat panel TV, and Nintendo Wii.  What more could I ask for?

Although most of the clinics I worked in were standard dental offices, I did have fun volunteering in their Mobile Dental Unit and participating in their annual "Brush Brush" Event.  All in all, the experience was amazing and I learned so much about public health and the importance of using your talents and skills to give back to the community.  My prayer is that I find more opportunities like this in the future.

This was my little helper, "Puff" the Magic Brushing Dragon.

The month of February flew by and it helped that Cheryl made the trip out to see me; After-all, I wasn't going to miss her birthday!  To celebrate, we had a fun little Central Coast weekend and headed over to Hearst Castle.  More on that in the next post...