Opening frontiers to the Gospel by meeting needs with innovative tools.

The close personal contact between a dentist and his patients provides a conduit through which both their physical and spiritual needs can be met. In Ghana, for example, a Christian pastor shared his faith in Christ with a Muslim Imam after the pastor cared for his dental needs. This encounter would never have taken place without the Muslim leader first feeling the Pastor’s compassion and love. Approximately half of the world’s population does not have ready access to quality dental care. Itec’s I-Dent program was designed to meet critical dental needs in places where there are no dentists. The only way dental and spiritual care will reach everyone is to train faithful indigenous God-followers to deliver basic dental services to their own people. These indigenous dental technicians learn their skills in short, intensive courses. They must learn and demonstrate a minimum level of proficiency in dentistry to obtain their certification.

 

To make dental technician training possible to underserved peopled in hard to reach areas, Itec has developed a Portable Dental System (PDS). This fully articulating dental chair with battery operated hand drill comes in a 34-pound pack that someone can comfortably carry on their back. The chair is made of anodized aluminum tubing and high-tech plastic joints that can support a patient up to 300 pounds. The chair includes a well-balanced 2,000-25,000 rpm dental drill, pneumatic foot-operated speed control pedal, instrument tray, solar panel and zero-memory metal hydride battery, and headlamp. A PDS can be set up or taken down in just over a minute. Variants of the Itec portable dental chair can be used for gynecological exams, eye surgery and physical examinations. Today, hundreds of chairs are in use in over 40 countries around the world.