James G. Rolfe, DDS

A Google User (13.09.2010 19:36)
I just spotted this article about Jim's work providing dental care to the poor in Afghanistan. How inspiring.
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Santa Barbara dentist perseveres on Afghanistan humanitarian project despite risks
Jim Rolfe sought to bring U.S.-caliber dental care to Afghans, most of whom have never been to a dentist. But it's been even more challenging than he could have imagined.
September 12, 2010|By Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Santa Barbara — To Santa Barbara dentist Jim Rolfe, it seemed straightforward enough: Turn a couple of shipping containers into prefab dental offices, send them to Afghanistan and set up a clinic.

That was before the steely idealist encountered corrupt officials and inept bureaucrats, flying shrapnel and religious killings. It was before his private practice ebbed and his retirement account plummeted, before he spent $750,000 of his savings on a project that, to less driven types, would seem doomed.

"It's just an obsession," he said in his office recently. "For me to give up — to let down all the people who helped me, the people who gave me money and advice, not to mention the Afghans — well, I couldn't bear to do that."

As other dentists at the end of their careers amble across the golf course, Rolfe operates in the shadow of the Taliban, providing essential care to people who have gone their whole lives without it. At 71, he's determined to keep his 3-year-old clinic alive — even after a dentist friend unaffiliated with the clinic and nine other Western aid workers were shot dead last month in a rural Afghan valley.

Working on the idea for nearly a decade, Rolfe has made frequent trips to Afghanistan while trying to maintain his office in Santa Barbara. His clinic on the outskirts of Kabul has treated thousands of Aghans at no charge — an achievement that has earned him an award from the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy, an Iowa-based humanitarian group.

In a land where people sometimes die of infections caused by abscessed teeth, many of Rolfe's patients had never before seen a dentist. Now they're treated by three — all Afghan. There are 13 other staffers, including women who have graduated as dental assistants from a class introduced by Rolfe and the American volunteers who pitch in.

When he's in Kabul, Rolfe keeps a low profile. When asked about his religious beliefs, he demurs. In 2008, gunmen on a motorcycle roared by just half a block from the clinic, killing a woman who was known to teach Christianity in her guest house.

Still, Rolfe, who wears a diamond stud in his left ear, couldn't resist a biblical allusion when he described his last few years: "Sometimes," he said, half-laughing, "I feel like Job."

While he was still building his clinic-in-a-box in Santa Barbara, he tripped on a tangle of wire and smashed four ribs. When he gashed himself with a saw, he sewed up his wound and kept working.

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