Dentists sign up as ‘Flying Samaritans’

Carol Vogel

Thursday, Aug. 31, 2000 | 4:18 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - Of all the places to find a calling, Chimborozo in Ecuador was it for Dr. Vinny D'Ascoli. It was in 1992 that this orthodontist busy with three offices thought he could get away from it all by climbing a mountain in the Andes.

Although he had a flair as a doctor to see a medical need and fix it, the last place he thought his services would be of use was at a base camp 16,000 feet up on Chimborozo. There he met a sheepherder with an abscessed tooth. D'Ascoli pulled the tooth and relieved the man's suffering.

"That's when I realized that these guys were really lacking in any kind of primary care," he said. "They probably have to walk or ride miles and miles on a bus or horseback or pack a llama around to get any kind of care."

When he returned home he decided to do something about it.

Today D'Ascoli is a member of the Flying Samaritans and Project Save, both volunteer groups of doctors and nurses donating their time, money, equipment and expertise two to three times a year to treat the poor in Third World countries.

While the Flying Samaritans work in San Quintine, Mexico, Project Save volunteers operate out of Nicaragua.

D'Ascoli isn't the only local doctor to help. Dr. James Pincock, a Carson City oral surgeon, also is a member of Project Save, and Dr. David Lund, a Gardnerville dentist, offers help by donating equipment such as the mobile X-ray unit he recently gave to the Flying Samaritans.

When these doctors aren't flying to help others, they're home working at their own practices or entertaining visiting physicians.

Last month two surgeons from Leon, Nicaragua, on a two-week medical sabbatical, stayed at D'Ascoli's Jacks Valley ranch for five days, riding horses and taking in an Oakland A's baseball game. They also spent a week at the Oakland Childrens Hospital in the Bay area learning different types of surgeries and honing their medical skills.

While these doctors are well aware of the health-care problems in the U.S., they agree it's far worse in Third World countries.

"These are people who otherwise have no access to care," Pincock said. "They have problems that have nothing to do with choices they've made. Ethically, I can say that I would rather go do that than not. I'm not going to feel bad about time out of the office or whatever else I'm going to miss."

Like most Flying Samaritans, D'Ascoli, a pilot, flies his own plane to meet with other doctors to treat patients in San Quintine. It's a tough job operating out of a remote village and one that is not without risk. Last May, a crew of two nurses and a doctor died in a small plane crash on their way to San Quintine.

"It was pretty upsetting," D'Ascoli said. "You're looking at some really neat people here. You spend a few days with them, learning about their interests and the next thing I know I'm sitting in a Mexican morgue identifying their bodies. It was a little disheartening."

Over the years, D'Ascoli, a divorced father of one daughter, Kristyn, 18, has earned a comfortable living. But his prize possession is a bird of paradise painting an 18-year-old patient gave him in Mexico, thanking him for correcting a facial and mouth deformity that once made his life miserable.

"It brought tears to my eyes," D'Ascoli said.

The grateful teen-ager also gave Pincock a painting. He was equally touched.

"My first reaction was, Gee you didn't need to do that,' "he said. "Then you have a sense of the gratitude that these people have. They have little or no access to sophisticated surgical care and he was obviously overwhelmingly grateful for the help he had been given."