Dr. Rupert Chowins is director of Optometric Services. Pacific Eye’s Eric White is a high-level surgical-technician. Together, they’re traveling to Guatemala.
Their time spent south, however, won’t be much of a vacation. Based on Chowins’s previous experience—he’s been to Guatemala four times in the past two years—he thinks they’ll be aiding about 1,000 patients and conducting about 200 sight-restoring operations in less than 10 days.
Chowins and White will be stationed in the Hospital de la Familia in the remote city of Nuevo Progreso, where citizens lack such services as running water, electricity, and sewer lines. The hospital where they’ll be volunteering doesn’t have much in the way of medical supplies, so the pair must bring their necessary supplies along.
Chowins recalled a past visit, during which two men carried their elderly mother in a burlap sack for her to receive medical attention.
“When you go to Guatemala, you get to use your education for the purest purpose,” he said in a statement. “It’s for all the reasons you went to school in the first place.”
Pacific Eye is sending Chowins and White. If you want to help Pacific Eye help impoverished Guatemalans, you can donate something as miniscule as an old pair of eyeglasses. As Chowins says, “Everyone has some capacity to help.”
For more information on Pacific Eye, call 545-8100 or visit PacEyeMD.com.
Intern Henry Houston compiled this week’s Community Corner. Send comments or ideas to the Sun via e-mail at intern@santamariasun.com..com.
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 4, 2010.