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Philadelphia—This time was different.

Mission trip: Student Cory Johnston, who has since graduated from Temple, hands out crayons to Haitian children.

But this time was different.

It wasn't just infections, abscesses and bad teeth. It was broken jaws, burns, wounds, broken legs and arms and just plain trauma, said Dr. Josh Bresler, who led a group of Temple University dental students to Haiti last March as part of an annual effort to provide dental care to the residents.

"We definitely have not seen as many trauma victims as we did in this trip," said Dr. Bresler, who traveled to Haiti as a Temple dental student and continues the weeklong trip as a faculty advisor.

The catastrophic 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti in January made what's always been a difficult and challenging trip that much more difficult.  The cities and villages the student dental team visited were in ruins, and their patients were now refugees with no place to call home.

"It was a horrible thing to see, but one of those experiences we'll never forget," Dr. Bresler said.

Every day, the team of 10 students and four faculty members split into two groups, seeing about 200 patients each day. Prior to the trip, the students did an oral surgery rotation to prepare.

They mostly did extractions, with faculty there to supervise and assist if a complicated one presented itself, Dr. Bresler said.

"The patients would point to what tooth hurt, and we would take it out," Dr. Bresler said. "The students' improvement of skills from the first day to the last day were pretty impressive to see."

They saw a 7-year-old girl with an abscessed first molar with a chronic draining extra-oral fistula—an infection so bad that pus was oozing out of a hole in her chin, Dr. Bresler wrote in a blog chronicling the trip. The Temple team extracted the tooth and cleaned the infected area.

"Without the benefit of proper lighting, suction and X-rays, which we take for granted at home, we are back to the basics of primitive oral surgery," Dr. Bresler wrote. "When a tooth breaks, we often have to use a chisel and mallet to split the roots or remove bone."

Their examinations also expanded beyond the oral cavity. A desperate mom approached Dr. Bresler and asked him to examine her 2-year-old son, who had a severely swollen scrotum. They determined the boy had a large hernia, and they made plans for him to travel to Jeremie, Haiti to see a general surgeon.

The complications continued as the group set forth for home. Their first flight back to New York City was canceled, but it gave the group an opportunity to explore Port-au-Prince.

"Words cannot describe what we saw," Dr. Bresler wrote. "I remember some beautiful buildings from previous trips that are now only piles of concrete and trash. The courthouse, presidential palace, major churches and schools were all demolished. The smell throughout the city was horrible from trash and what must have been bodies decaying under the still huge piles of rubble everywhere."

Dr. Bresler's sister, Rachel Bresler, a dental school senior on the trip who also traveled to Haiti last year, said their delayed departure created an "emotional roller coaster of a day" but she's glad it happened because the group was able to gain perspective by seeing more of the damage.

"That whole experience was definitely scary, but I'm happy that it happened, because it made the trip, and it really was important for us to experience," Ms. Bresler said.

"If it were up to me, I could go for a week each month, which I know isn't realistic but I really love it there," said Ms. Bresler, who noted that she plans to return.