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An Unforgettable Experience

Blog Submitted by Alexandra Stripp

Alexandra Stripp is a student at ACS International School, Hillingdon. Since 2000, American Community School (ACS) has partnered ORBIS to promote international education and global citizenship among its students.  Every year, high achieving students go through a rigorous selection process for three internships during one week on board the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital.

In April 2012, I was lucky enough to be able to follow the work of the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital in Da Nang, Vietnam for a week, together with three other students from ACS International Schools and the Westminster Academy, and I can say without doubt that for me it was a life changing experience. 

The work of ORBIS fascinates me on many levels. First of all as a human being, wanting to make a difference in the world - it was amazing to be a part of a team that each year changes thousands of lives. Secondly, as I am planning to study medicine, the actual work ORBIS carries out fascinates me on a medical level. And finally the way passionate specialists come together in a team, sharing their knowledge and engaging others while changing the life of people in great need is an amazing experience to be a part of.  

Monday morning was the screening day, the day where pre-selected patients come to the local eye hospital to be examined. This is a very busy and tiring day, many patients come and leave, and as the Medical Director of the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital told me, the day is “controlled chaos”.

Each patient was put into one of three groups, depending what treatment was needed. The three categories were cataract, oculoplastics and surgical retina, with one ORBIS Volunteer Faculty member in charge of each. Each patient’s situation was individually evaluated, and about 20 from each category were chosen to have a surgery by ORBIS Volunteer Faculty and local hands-on trainees.

I was following Dr. Kutzscher’s work that day. He is specialized in cataract and had come all the way from the U.S. to volunteer for ORBIS. This is also one of the things that made ORBIS such a great experience, all the staff, everyone is so committed and it was so amazing to observe them striving for what they believe and work for. This was also shown in Dr. Kutzcher’s way of very explaining to us what he would be doing and looking for while examining each patient. 

The next three days were again hard work for the doctors, nurses and the rest of the team, as the selected patients would be treated. One doctor would be located at the local eye hospital and the two others would carry out surgeries on the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital. 

The days on the plane were very exciting. I was able to scrub-in at (assist at) a surgery, which made me understand much better how it all works. I saw the importance of the many people involved both before, during and after a surgery. When not scrubbing in, one can follow the live streaming of the surgeries with a doctor explaining every move on a screen in the Flying Eye Hospital classroom. 

This was so helpful and fascinating at the same time, as it was much easier to understand what was going on when both actually seeing it, but also having it explained. In the ORBIS classroom at the front of the plane, local trainees were following and learning from an ORBIS Volunteer Faculty member, and in-between each surgery other classes or lectures were held. Quickly, without knowing much about ophthalmology, one felt engaged by the passion of the doctors, showing different cases they had performed themselves in their home-country and then explaining the differences. 

The aircraft also carries a simulator, used by trainees, which we were allowed to try. This was very hard, but enjoyable at the same time, giving insight about how much training and perfection the doctors need during the surgeries, where 0.5mm can make a huge difference. 

The emotional moments of this experience will probably stay with me the longest, if not forever. I especially remember standing looking into the operation room as a surgery just finished. As soon the translator, told the patient that everything went well, she took the doctor’s hand, kissed it and said ‘thank you very much’ while a tear dropped from her eye. At this point, I think I realized how big a difference ORBIS makes to these people. 

I feel so privileged that I got the chance of following ORBIS in, Da Nang, Vietnam. For me, the trip was an unforgettable experience. Following the work of the entire ORBIS team, feeling the passion about each person’s profession and their experiences with ORBIS, seeing patients entering the plane with bad vision, and leaving the plane the same day, with improved vision, which, for most of the patients would not be a possibility without ORBIS. 
I will never forget this trip and I am so thankful to ORBIS for giving me this opportunity.

Why Eye Intern

Blog Submitted by Muhammad Javad

Muhammad Javed is an Intern for the Program and Communication departments at ORBIS’s New York office. He is a third-year student at City University of New York-Baruch College pursing a BA degree in Psychology.  

Born in a rural village in Punjab, Pakistan, I was just another child viewing poverty up close. Little did I know that what I could see would greatly change. In 1993, at age two, I was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a pediatric cancer of the retina. My family took me to local and distant physicians, but there was simply no treatment available in Pakistan. My family was told to "go to Europe or America if you want your child to survive.” 

Fortunately, my father had immigrated to America several years earlier and was able to arrange for my mother and me to come to the US in the fall of 1993. I spent the next eight months undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment for the cancer. The treatment was  successful, but they had to remove my right eye and I developed a cataract in my left eye.

With the support of my family, friends and teachers, I learned to patiently persevere with my progressive vision loss. I appreciated whatever I could see and that kept me persistent for the next 16 years. 

In 2009, I underwent a long-awaited cataract surgery. I had little expectations of how the world would look with better vision. Instead, I feared that I might lose it all if the surgery did not go well. Gratefully, that was not the case. 

My vision improved immensely. It was nothing less than a miracle. Everything looked so vibrant and real, that I felt it was unreal. I was able to read regular print with just the aid of glasses, something I was never able to do. I no longer needed to use a cane when travelling alone and eventually applied for a driver’s license. Everything from the beautiful faces of my parents to the ubiquitous, yet indiscriminate, specks of paint on the surface of the wall of my room was visible in a new beautiful light. 

But more than ever, I have come to appreciate each ray of light that miraculously passes through my minuscule pupil to paint a masterpiece on the canvas of my mind’s eye every time I blink. I was overwhelmed with all the visual impulses, insights and ideas, but I just cannot get enough of these miracles now. My eye lets me see the perpetual miracle of vision and it is has since been my mission to do whatever I can to help others experience this blessing, especially those who may be needlessly deprived of it. 

I was still adjusting to my new vison when I started college a few months after the surgery. I decided to study psychology, because how we see is an amazingly intricate phenomenon that involves not just our eyes but also our mind. I began to volunteer at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, the hospital where I had my surgery. I also served as a sighted-guide to blind individuals at various organizations and events. It was through this dedication to vision that I eventually learned about ORBIS. 

My ophthalmologist told me about ORBIS during one of my follow-up visits. I already had an affinity with anything related to vision, but ORBIS’s novel Flying Eye Hospital gave the noble initiative to prevent blindness a completely new dimension. In the following semester I enrolled in an “Internship in Nonprofit” course at my university and requested to intern at ORBIS. 

I received the privilege of interning at ORBIS in April and I cannot be any happier. The mission and vision of ORBIS is innate to me and I hope to continue to contribute to it in the years to come. My personal experience of being born in a developing country, developing a tumor in my retina, losing a significant amount of vision and fortunately regaining vision after sixteen years of vision impairment inspires me to be a part of ORBIS to further our shared goal to help people see the world.