In the 28th “Find- Your-Role Model session”, we hosted Dr. Masahiro Iwata, who has been working as a freelance maxillofacial and oral surgeon since 2013. After graduation he worked for many years in Japan to improve his skills and knowledge. Once he became the director of oral surgery at General Hospital, he had a chance to visit the Children's Hospital in Cambodia in 2000. Since then he has been providing medical support by volunteering in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and China. He spends from 7-10 days a month in these countries and up to now has performed over 1200 operations without compensation. In addition to surgery he also spends time educating the younger generation of doctors in these countries.

In this session, he shared a lot of pictures of his medical support activities in Cambodia, talking about his experiences as an oral surgeon both in Japan and freelance surgeon in developing countries. We tend to expect to achieve our future goals without reflecting on ourselves, but he said it is important to create a foundation of both skills and knowledge to become a worldwide dentist/healthcare provider. In addition to this, last but definitely not least, interaction with people in the community you are visiting and striving to build a good relationship of trust is necessary for medical support activities. This session was a good opportunity to expose us to a new topic and to let us consider how to be a useful medical professional contributing to society.

HSLP Student Host