Giving Back

We are proud to be affiliated with The Fisher House, located at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.   This amazing program supports America’s military in their time of need.  The program recognizes the special sacrifices of our men and women in uniform and the hardships of military service by meeting a humanitarian need beyond that normally provided by the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

Because members of the military and their families are stationed worldwide and must often travel great distances for specialized medical care, Fisher House Foundation donates “comfort homes,” built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers.  These homes enable family members to be close to a loved one at the most stressful of times – during the hospitalization for an unexpected illness, disease, or injury.

Annually, the Fisher House program serves more than 11,000 families, and have made available nearly three million days of lodging to family members since the program originated in 1990.  There is no charge for any family to stay at a Fisher House operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The team at Bethesda Sedation Dentistry understands the great circumstances that families staying at Fisher House are enduring at this difficult time.   We are honored to be able to assist the Fisher House residents with emergency dental care during their stay enabling them to spend as much time with their loved ones as possible.
We are thankful for what the staff, along with Fisher House Foundation does to provide care and support for our wounded servicemen and women, and their families.

Bethesda Sedation Dentistry Team Returns from Charitable Dental Mission

The dental team of Bethesda Sedation Dentistry is dedicated to mission work and spent time at Ambergris Caye, an island just off the mainland of Belize. Here we provided charitable dental services to this island community of San Pedro and to jungle communities on the mainland.  The Belize Mission Project is comprised of dentists, physicians, dental hygienists, lab technicians, assistants and other helpers who join together to provide medical and dental services.  They come together from all over the USA.

On our first day on the island, everyone assisted with unpacking an enormous container of donated medical supplies worth about $800,000 for the local San Pedro Poly Clinic.  During our one week stay 750 dental examinations were completed, 550 medical exams, 480 tooth extractions, 215 fillings, 69 dental cleanings and 52 hearing aids were fitted.  The dental services were provided using portable dental chairs, which are really modified beach chairs and drills powered by compressed air from scuba tanks.  “You find any place you can to set up and suddenly there is a line.”

The team traveled by boat up the Tatar River to the Maskall community and by plane to Placencia on the mainland.  These trips were taken despite the tropical depression that sat over the entire area for the week and the extensive flooding caused by approximately two feet of rain.  The team also had to brave the specter of salt water crocodiles, which infest the area.  The care provided is the only dental treatment that these communities receive in any given year.

One of the team leaders observed, “These wonderful people, regardless of their obvious poverty and amazingly difficult lives, have an incredibly positive attitude, big smiles on their faces and are so grateful for any assistance.  It is a wonderful reminder of how lucky we are, in this country, to have so many safety nets when things get tough.”  The team included Cathy, Dora, Diane, and Kimberly.  They also commented on the enormous personal reward by giving to others and how moved they were by the happiness expressed by those with so little.

The Bethesda Sedation Dentistry team hopes to be able to continue with their charity missions and want to thank all their patients and suppliers who made this mission possible.  Without their help we would not have been able to take the time away from the practice and would not have had all the supplies necessary to provide this care.