Rotan Eye Clinic - A Work in Progress In 2010 Dr. Young Choi and Dr. Jeff Machat from Crystal Clear Vision Clinic were part of one of the fall AHMEN Teams to Honduras. Their explicit goal was to "scout out" an area to set up an Eye Clinic. Their plan is to offer members of their organization, Crystal Clear Vision Clinic, an opportunity to do mission work in Honduras. Here is the latest report from Dr. Choi on this project.
Hi Everyone, Time quickly flies! May is here and we are ready for our first mission trip. Our first eye mission trip to Roatan will be our optometry team led by Dr. Bonnie Mallard. She will bring a group of about 14 -- mixture of optometrists, UAB optometry students. They will have clinic on Sunday and Monday (May 15 and 16) at the French Harbour facility and Tuesday and Wednesday at Oakridge.
Clinic will be from 7:30 am to 5 pm. Our goal is to see somewhere between 150 to 180 patients a day. This trip will primarily focus on screening, glass exams, and primary eye exams. Announcements about this trip will (or already have been) be made to the locals.
I can not say enough how wonderful both Dr. Mallard and our other optometry team leader, Dr. Marcela Frazier, have been. Furthermore, I have been extremely impressed with the UAB optometry students, Paula and Brandon.
We have a fantastic group. They have also tentatively agreed to another trip in October. They are going to play an extremely vital role in Roatan eye care. We are currently not ready for surgery at the French Harbour facility. We are working on shipping a container in July, which will have a surgical microscope in that shipment. So if you want to send something down to Roatan on our container, please let me know.
A physical address for the container will be available shortly. The container will be in Miami in June for couple weeks prior to being shipped off. I have had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Bowers and his wife in San Diego during one of our national eye meetings. He is a surgeon who has been going down to Roatan for years. He has been working out of the Oakridge facility.
He is open to the idea of possibly centralizing and combining our resources, at the very least communicating our activities. I am very excited about the prospect of making the French Harbour facility the "eye hospital" for Roatan. Dr. Bowers will be at the Oakridge facility June 11-18. He will be operating and running a clinic. In summary: May 15 to 18: first CCV eye mission team -- optometry team focusing on primary eye care at French Harbour and Oakridge June 11-18: Dr. Darin Bowers at Oakridge -- cataract surgery and medical clinic July: CCV container with microscope and other supplies for French Harbour clinic (and elsewhere for other shipments) There is a lot happening.
And a lot more behind-the-scenes activities. I can not thank Joseph Natale enough for his help in Roatan and with so many issues trying to get this started. Best regards, Young