On the Road to More Smiles

Chula Faculty of Dentistry alumnus Dr Krisada Thiranont heads volunteer unit offering mobile services

Some people look at obstacles and see opportunities. Dr Krisada Thiranont is one of them. Having worked as a dental services volunteer since 2006, he found that transporting a fully integrated dental unit was a big burden. Volunteer dentists seek to provide care to people living in remote regions, which often means traveling across rough terrain. That inspired Dr Krisada to modify some equipment to make the work easier.

“The standard dental unit consists of many isolated tools that are quite heavy and require storage space,” recalls Dr Krisada, who graduated from the Faculty of Dentistry at Chulalongkorn University. “Transporting them in large amounts usually requires a big, strong truck. It’s quite inconvenient to load and unload, and it takes time to assemble and dismantle everything. Also, the cost of transport for each trip is very high.”

Although the modifications he made helped to ease the problems associated with serving rural areas, in recent years Dr Krisada has seen an urgent need for improvements in metropolitan areas as well, and this has become his main focus.

“I saw that rural areas were being covered by various dental volunteer teams already,” he says. “Then I found out that a large number of vulnerable groups of people in the Bangkok metropolitan region still lacked access to dental care.”

He learned that many low-income people and those with disabilities sought free treatment whenever a mobile dental unit came to their community, but these visits were infrequent. People behind bars also face long queues to get proper dental treatment. Novices and monks at Phrapariyattidhamma schools also hoped to see more frequent visits from dental volunteer teams.

His team learned that inmates at the Central Women’s Correctional Institution often had to wait for four to five years for dental treatment. The dental service provided by the Department of Corrections was available only once a week, and carried out by one dentist at a time. So priority was given to those needing urgent treatment.

“So we need dental units with more flexibility to move around and save time and space for setup,” Dr Krisada says. “We don’t lack dentists and supporting teams who want to volunteer. If we can bring in more units, it means we can increase our treatment capacity at each visit.”

He and some volunteer friends founded the Thai Mobile Dental Unit Volunteer (TMDUV) unit to seriously tackle these problems. First he first modified dental autoclaves, which can sterilize equipment three times faster than normal models. He then designed a portable mobile dental unit by combining filling and scaling systems, a lamp, suction device, spittoon and drainage together. All of the tools are housed in a portable metal cart that can easily be carried to a variety of places, and in large numbers if needed. With support from his engineer friends, the designs were transformed into real working models and some of the innovations have been patented.

At present TMDUV is able to call on as many as 70 dentists and supporting personnel for field work at any given time. This enables it to provide free dental treatment for between 800 and 1,000 people per weekend.

TMDUV also supports the work of the Princess Mother’s Medical Volunteer Foundation by providing portable mobile dental units as well as free dental services for those under the care of the Foundation for the Welfare of the Crippled under the Royal Patronage of Her Royal Highness the Princess Mother.

With more efficient portable mobile tools, the team has also helped increase the capacity of the charitable dental work offered by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.

The team’s next project is to provide its portable mobile units to support agencies and dentists carrying out volunteer work throughout the country. Through Dr Krisada’s Natural Smile Clinic in Bangkok, TMDUV has gained access to more assistance and funds to assemble portable mobile units to give away.

“My patients and interested people who learn about our project have lent their warm support to us,” he says. “Some donate money while others work as volunteers. Such a project requires cooperation from local people as well as the government and private sector.

“Our team thinks volunteering is a perfect way to pay back society. We feel good every time we can ease patients’ pain. Their happy smiles inspire us to continue our work.”

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Dr Krisada Thiranont

Education: Faculty of Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University, Class 37

Occupation: Owner of Natural Smile Dental Clinic

Community Activities:

• 2015 to present: Subcommittee member, Princess Mother’s Medical Volunteer Foundation
• 2004 to present: Committee member, Private Dentists Association of Thailand
• 2014-16: Vice-president, Mobile Medical and Dentist Foundation

This article was originally published in CU Around March 2019, Vol.62, Issue 3, Page 6-7, available at https://www.chula.ac.th/magazine/17395/