Pre-dental Students:

This message is intended to appraise you of an opportunity to be involved in a humanitarian dental expedition to Honduras. As a participant, you will travel with a group of dentists to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Once there, your primary duties will be to serve as a dental assistant/technician to the dentists who will be on the trip with you. The organizers of the trip are expecting to have a group of 50-60 people including 15 dental professionals, around 18-20 pre-dental students, plus other support staff and family members. Students at BYUI were allotted 4 of the 18-20 spaces for pre-dental students.

BYU-Idaho students have participated in two previous Honduras expeditions and all students had a great experience. Such experiences look great on a dental school application, and you likely will get to know some dentists well enough that you will want to ask them to write a letter of recommendation for you.

Plans are still in the developmental stages, but they are rapidly being finalized. Currently, the itinerary is as follows:
* Leave Friday afternoon, April 28 from Salt Lake City. Stay overnight in Houston
* Fly Saturday, April 29 to Tegucigalpa (capital of Honduras); spend the afternoon getting set up in the dental school at the University of Honduras
* Sunday will be church and service project
* Monday, May 1 through Friday noon, May 5, work at dental clinic
* Friday afternoon, May 5 fly to Roatan, an island off the Honduras coast
* Saturday play on the beach, SCUBA, snorkel, relax, etc.
* Sunday go to Church, more relaxing
* Monday, May 8, fly home arriving SLC in the evening

The total price for everything including the Roatan trip is going to be about $1,850. The cost includes airfare to Honduras, the Roatan island airfare, hotels in Tegucigalpa and Roatan, and most other expenses. It does not include your fun and games in Roatan such as SCUBA, snorkeling, golf, etc.

You should know this is not an official school or church-sponsored event. The organizers of this trip work on an unofficial basis with Honduran church officials to provide humanitarian aid and they have an affiliation with a non-profit humanitarian group called, “Mother without Borders.” The expedition leaders have led these dental/humanitarian excursions on a number of occasions; our students have benefitted from the experience and so we have agreed to assist in identifying students interested in participating in this and future expeditions.

If you are interested in being considered for this trip, send me an e-mail and I will send you a brief application form. Applications must be submitted to me (either hard-copy or via e-mail) no later than 20 February 2006.

Jerry H. Scrivner
Associate Dean
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
BEN 294J
208-496-2033
scrivnerj@byui.edu