We asked Dr. Bob Koff to recap all the dental projects
he’s traveled for during his nearly 40-year career.
We weren’t quite prepared for the full list!
May 1985: My first trip to China with my (now ex-) wife, Pat.
She was doing a project with Project Hope to set up a neonatal/
pediatric ICU in Hangzhou for a month. Project Hope didn’t have
a dental program, so I created one at my own expense.
May 1986: We returned to China, and this time added
Shanghai to the list. I asked four dental companies to pay
$1,500 each to fund the trip, and spent a month doing
lectures and demonstrations.
June 1986: Whaledent sponsored me for a week in South Korea
to provide lectures to dentists in seven cities, from Seoul to
Busan (in the south).
April 1987: The third trip to China lasted for a month, and
included my mom. (Pat had a new job, so she couldn’t take the
time off.) The trip included Hangzhou, Shanghai, Xian and Beijing
for lectures and demonstrations. Dentsply and Whaledent split
the cost of the trip, about $3,500 each.
September 1988: I did a volunteer dental project for a month
in Kathmandu with a Colorado engineer who had devoted his
retirement to help the people of Nepal. Another dentist and I
worked in clinics set up around the city, including at an orphanage
and a neighborhood social center.
January 1991: The beginning of taking a full year off with an
“around-the-world” airline ticket began with a volunteer dental
project on Ambergris Caye, Belize. We’d been on a diving trip
and noticed a medical/dental clinic built by the Lions Club next
to the runway. My real estate buddy, Steve, was my on-the-job-trained
assistant and we provided free dental care, sometimes in
exchange for meals, scuba diving, windsurfing rentals, etc.
February 1991: I did a volunteer dental project with a retired
American dentist in Honduras. The remote setting sometimes
involved a two-hour canoe ride to outlying villages.
March 1991: I did volunteer dentistry in Antigua, Guatemala.
I lived with a family and took Spanish lessons at a local school in
the mornings, then did volunteer dentistry at the local hospital
alongside a Guatemalan dentist in the afternoons.
March 1991: I provided lectures to dentists in San Jose,
Costa Rica, sponsored by Whaledent.
July and August 1991: I did volunteer dentistry in Romania
and Bulgaria with an NGO called Citizens Democracy Corps, which
was set up by President George W. Bush to teach free-market
concepts to former Soviet Union countries.
November 1991: This was a monthlong volunteer dental
project at a children’s clinic in Ashdod, Israel, set up through
a New York foundation.
September 1995: I worked at a volunteer dental project in
Tomsk, Siberia, through CDC. A clinic in Tomsk—which we later
learned was owned by the mafia!—wanted to upgrade to be
“like an American clinic.” A recently retired dental colleague
from Denver and I provided consulting services and helped
them order about $50,000 worth of new dental equipment
from Henry Schein to upgrade their clinic.
January through September 1996: I moved with Pat
and our then 3-year-old daughter, Lauren, to Russia. I was hired
as the “American dentist” in a clinic in St. Petersburg owned
by an American and called AMC (American Medical Center).
I provided general dentistry and training for the staff.
December 1999: This was a volunteer dental project in
Danang, Vietnam, through the East Meets West nonprofit.
I did dental lectures on composites, fluoride, sealants and
tooth whitening in the dental school in Ho Chi Minh City.
June 2001: Ultradent helped with the arrangements for this
volunteer dental project in Bolivia, in a remote village outside
Santa Cruz.
August 2002 through June 2003: I moved with my family
to Barcelona, Spain. Pat got a job with the University of Barcelona
on a first-of-its-kind telemedicine project. I did some volunteer
dentistry in two private offices with dentists I met, working on
them as well as some friends I had made in town.
October 2005 and March 2006: I took donated dental
supplies from a number of dental companies to Cuba. I could
not get a permit to work, so I donated the supplies to the dental
school and some other clinics.
December 2007: I took donated dental supplies to public
clinics in Panama with the help of a Colorado dentist who was
from Panama.
December 2008: During this volunteer project to Barcelos,
Brazil, I provided limited dental services and donated dental
materials from several dental companies.
December 2009: I took donated dental supplies to the one
dentist on Easter Island, which is a special territory of Chile.
August 2012: I signed up as the dentist for a six-month
contract to work at the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) stations,
McMurdo Station and Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
I provided general dental services including routine exams and
cleanings, fillings, root canals and extractions, and brought about
$15,000 of donated dental materials to upgrade the clinic. After
the contract, I remained the dental consultant to the USAP to help
the medical staff deal with dental issues when I'm not there.
May 2014: Worked at a volunteer dental project in Madagascar,
which had been arranged by a Colorado resident who grew up
there and has returned many times to help the people.
January 2015 (and also January 2016, January 2017
and January 2018): I persuaded USAP I could do all the
required dental work at McMurdo and South Pole in six weeks
instead of six months. I also provided dental training to the
medical staff to deal with dental issues when I’m not there. (When
I took the season off in 2013 and 2019, I helped USAP fi nd other
dentists to go to McMurdo and South Pole.)
June 2017 and June 2019: I provided general dental services
in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska through the NGO Eastern Aleutian
Tribes, working in clinics in King Cove, Sand Point and Whittier.
November 2019: I provided general dental services to the
USAP station called Palmer, which is a five-day trip on a research
icebreaker from the southern coast of Chile.
December 2019 through February 2020 (and again December 2020 through February 2021): USAP dentist at
McMurdo and South Pole.