IS students and Drs. Perry and Trombly make a real difference in Tennessee

Thanks to Sura Alazzawi, IS23 for this post.

Remote Area Medical (RAM) is a major nonprofit provider of free mobile medical clinics. The mission is to prevent pain & alleviate suffering by providing free, quality healthcare to those in need. RAMUSA does this by delivering free dental, vision, and medical services to underserved and uninsured individuals. 

RAM’s Corps of more than 135,000 Humanitarian Volunteers – licensed dental, vision, medical and veterinary professionals have treated more than 785,000 people and 68,000 animals, delivering $135 million worth of free health care services. 

On March 18th and 19th, 2023 , the RAM clinics took place in Cookeville, Tennessee. 13 Dental International students participated in this mission trip with the amazing efforts of Dr. Ronald Perry who worked hard to make this happen. Beside other 3-4 dental schools, it was an honor to have TUFTS name there as the school that provided the greatest number of services.

Hundreds of patients were waiting there in lines since the night before in the cold weather to reserve a spot and make sure to be seen as they wait for this event eagerly. They came to the RAM clinics to relieve dental pain and receive other medical and vision services.

It wasn’t only a great experience to the IS class but as well great opportunity to be able to help so many people in need and give back to the community.

This mission trip gave us the chance to use our clinical skills to help others, we learned so much during this trip that gave us a very good perspective as to the importance of advocating for universal health care especially with regards to the underserved communities across America. Not to forget also that participating in RAM enriches the IS program. 

It was a great honor for all the IS class to work together with Dr. Ronald Perry and Dr. Paul Trombly in this mission trip.

No words can describe the feeling when seeing happiness at the patients faces after having their pain relieved and providing them with the dental services they need. The amazing work that our team did, made a huge difference in the lives of these patients. We were able to register 570 patients and provide $297,102 in services in two days.

We are so proud of the hard work, excellent dental care, and team spirit that the professional team at Tufts provided for the patients at the clinic in Cookeville, Tennessee. 

Participants from TUSDM:

Dr. Ronald Perry 

Dr. Paul Trombly 

Sura Alazzawi IS’23

Sumona Akter Eity IS’23

Fatima Hussein Ba Haroun IS’23

Abdullah Buchi IS’23

Sabitha Chacko IS’23

Salih Elnashef IS’23

Abdullah Elsalti IS’23

Uyi Vincent Osa IS’23

Arooj Sarfraz IS’23

Mohamad Riad Siblini IS’23

Nuba Afzal Siddiqi IS’23

Daniela Valentina Sotillo Toratti IS’23

Eric Tetteh IS’23

Asma Hameed DMD Tufts class 2006

We as IS students will appreciate if participating in the RAM trip is sustained and if it gets supported. We are all looking forward to keeping participating as tufts alumni in future. We will continue to be Tufts Jumbos!