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Air Force dental clinic provides coalition care

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Vincent Borden
  • 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Lt. Col. John Walton, the lone orthodontist responsible for the dental care of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing, works in an office which could serve as the classic example of irony.

The size of a small bedroom, the clinic serves at the sole point of dental care available to all Airmen and coalition forces in the wing, some 3,000 personnel with over 100,000 teeth of varying condition. In order to help him provide the care, Colonel Walton has but one dental assistant, one reclining dental chair and one policy: that anyone suffering dental pain can walk in and be treated immediately.

Despite seeing a range of dental problems, no one has gone untreated.

"We treat a lot of different things here, but what we see often falls into three main categories: broken bones and broken teeth, pulp problems and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) conditions," said Colonel Walton, 386th Medical Group orthodontist.

The procedures that must be performed in response to these problems, such as root canals and filling replacements, range depending on the severity of the infection or injury to the mouth. Colonel Walton may have to replace a filling and pin a tooth together one day, and suture someone's lip together the next.

"We stay busy here," said Colonel Walton. "I've always heard historically that the dentists stay pretty busy on deployments. There's always a steady stream of dental problems that happens here."

Things are both busy and different for Tech. Sgt. Jason Staggers, 386th MDG dental technician who calls Berkely Calif., home. He is mostly used to cleaning teeth at his clinic at Wright-Patterson AFB.

He said the range of procedures he sees here keeps things interesting, and it gives his work a different feeling than working back home.

"Back home you get into a routine, a sort of nine to five type of thing," said Sergeant Staggers. "I didn't realize how important dental was until I came out here. Getting people out of tooth pain and getting them back to their jobs is very important."

Colonel Walton and Sergeant Staggers understand that importance, and have adjusted their range of care accordingly. They exclude routine dental work, such as teeth cleaning, from the services they offer.

The clinic also refrains from performing major oral surgery operations, such as wisdom tooth removal and other tooth extraction procedures. In cases where that level of care is needed, Colonel Walton will refer the patient to a nearby dental facility at Camp Arifjan. The facility there has more tools, personnel to handle the work.

After visiting the facility upon his arrival here, Colonel Walton said he was impressed by the capabilities of Camp Arifjan. They've had to refer a few patients there for surgery and advanced infections, and they were able to do so in good confidence they would be taken care of. They have not been disappointed.

The dental clinics at Camp Arifjan allow Colonel Walton to concentrate on getting people the necessary help they need, quickly, instead of having to devote the hours to one patient that an oral surgery would take to complete.

Because of this, Sergeant Staggers said the clinic was able to treat a lot of non-traditional patients as well.

"With it being a walk-in clinic, we see a lot of transients flying on their way back to Landstuhl or to other locations in the [U.S. Central Command area of responsibility]," Sergeant Staggers said. "We also see a few Army and Navy [personnel], as well as Koreans and Australian military."

The ability to extend his services internationally and non-traditionally to other services and coalition forces that need the care is especially satisfying to Colonel Walton, who considers himself a nontraditional orthodontist.

After graduating from dental school, Colonel Walton participated in a few different specialized Air Force training programs, including maxillofacial prosthetics and prosthodontics. His path through the dental profession strayed him away from general dentistry, which he hadn't performed in ten years.

After being notified of his deployment, Colonel Walton said he relied on the Air Force Dental Corp, one he referred to as the "best in the world," in his attempt to familiarize himself with general dentistry procedures.

"It all came back to me," said Colonel Walton, a father of three who takes his children's dental care as seriously as his profession. "That was nice to see, that I could bring those skills back to the forefront that I hadn't practiced in a while. It's made me feel really good to be here, because I know the work we're doing is important and it shows every day.

"I know that if we weren't here, there would definitely be something of a vacuum or a hole that's not being filled," the colonel said. "To know that you can come over here and step into a job like this and make your own little impact for your country just feels good. And I know [Sergeant Staggers] and I will go back home proud of the work we were able to accomplish."