Dr. Soo-Woo Kim pulled out a boy’s tooth in a poor village in Nicaragua. Growing at the end of the tooth, Kim found a maggot.

“He was in pain. The tooth could wiggle around because of the maggot growing inside,” Kim recalled. The trip to Central America was one of the most memorable for Kim, who started an organization in November 2013 that provides oral health care for peoples worldwide that otherwise wouldn’t have it.

Kim’s buildup to starting Dentists for Humanity was an uneasy one. He originally studied biomedical engineering at the University of California Los Angeles. His mentors at UCLA were dentists, and he quickly changed fields after receiving his master’s degree in 2002.

Kim moved to Boston to attend the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and received his degree in 2008. In 2012, he finished his residency for periodontics. Post-graduation, Kim lives in Newton, teaches at Harvard, and practices at Dartmouth Periodontics and Implant Dentistry on State Road, alongside travelling for his charity.

“I like that I can use my hands to help others,” said Kim. “When I was going through school, I would say I had a depression. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, purpose of life.”

Kim said that the pressure to succeed stemmed from his Korean culture. He immigrated to California when he was 19, but in his culture, money and success go hand-in-hand, he explained.

It was during his schooling that Kim was first introduced to a new life perspective. Flirting with suicidal thoughts, Kim decided to accompany friends on a mission trip to an Indian reservation in northern Canada in 2006. There, he befriended a seven-year-old girl who had lost her whole family the week before his arrival.

“The whole house blew up,” he said, explaining an accident that evolved from family members’ habit of gas sniffing. Kim taught the girl to play guitar, she began calling him “uncle,” and the two exchanged letters regularly after he returned to New England from his week-long trip.

“Her mood was a lot more stable after my visit. Even though I was not related to her, I made a small difference in her life,” Kim said.

Kim eventually lost contact with the girl in her teenage years, after she was kicked out of school, but he did not give up. He continued school-sponsored dentistry mission trips. In 2009, he visited Bocachica, a village on an island northwest of Columbia.

“In the island, there’s no cars. There are not even people leaving the island,” Kim recalled of Bocachica’s poverty. He remembered cleaning a man’s teeth, and being stunned by the reaction.

“He was smiling, and he looked very happy,” Kim said. “Even though I was going to the best school in the world and practicing dentistry, I wasn’t happy. But what I do with what I have can make a difference in someone else’s life. I wanted to deliver that message to my students.”

In 2011, Kim made his first trip to Haiti, a place he would visit two to three times a year, every year following.

“Haiti really needed a lot of help. Fifteen to 20 minutes from the capital, people actually starve. In the city, there are huge markets. It was this drastic inequality issue,” he said. Drawing on his experience with the native girl, Kim knew he had to keep working with the same people to make a long-term impact.

He started a clinic in the city, which he will work for about two days out of his week-long trips. Then, he drives with his volunteers — he takes about 15 students from Harvard, Tufts University, and Boston University, along with a handful of dentist volunteers for each trip — to the rural parts of the country. In total, the crew helps about 500 patients per trip, Kim said.

“It keeps my life going, constantly taking care of others. I recognize people. They recognize me,” he added. The service work doesn’t end there, though, said Kim.

“Helping others makes your life a lot more richer. So we do the same thing when we come back to Boston,” he said. He and his student volunteers work in the Boston homeless shelters, offering food, time, and oral health education, he said. Kim also runs a Harvard chapter of Dentists for Humanity, and helps students connect to longtime practicing dentists and mentors.

“My hope is to put these people together as a community and we can do bigger things,” he said.

Kim’s new views are consistent throughout his family. His wife goes on Christian mission trips. While his eight-year-old daughter is still too young for that kind of experience, Kim said he looks forward to introducing her to that kind of charity when she’s older.

Kim will leave for his ninth trip to Haiti on March 11. For more information on his organization — which is funded partly by an annual charity gala — visit www.dentistsforhumanity.org.