I Care International volunteers served 1550 patients with four doctors and two 4th year optometry students from the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Our clinic facility was excellent with separate rooms for different parts of our process in the hospital Gregorio Schaeffer in San Lucas Tolimán.
All of our 40+ volunteers worked very hard the entire time to keep the show running smoothly!
The patients provided to us by Dr. Tun and staff were a little out of range than what a standard I Care clinic order of glasses covered. We are geared for more elderly patients in need of bifocals than young nearsighted patients with astigmatism. This is not unusual as each clinic can present with a different patient population and it’s hard to predict precisely. If we return to this location again and are provided the demographics of our expected patients, we can easily make adjustments to the I Care standard order to accommodate their visual needs. Our newly acquired Spot Screener autorefractor was very helpful in determining the patient’s prescription. Much thanks to the Rotary from San Luis Obispo for that donation.
I think after returning from a three-year Covid layoff, the clinic went extremely well. I am not aware of any Covid related sickness transmitted during this clinic. Again, the hospital was a wonderful place to hold a clinic, I can’t think of a better location in my 40 years of I Care and Vosh experiences.
We hope you enjoy all the beautiful pictures that were taken/collected by Leigh Livick and the awesome video provided by Chris Gardner from the Rotary Club of San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. We will be providing a more in depth look at our clinic to Guatemala and the future plans for I Care during our Annual Meeting which will be held in May.
Stephen Storey, O.D., President of I Care International
