Last week we had an awesome experience—in the midst of our last weeks of preparation for our mission to Haiti, we are continuing to open our Oakridge clinic.  Pretty hectic—clinic by day, boat work by afternoon and evening, and computer work late into the night…but totally worth opening the clinic not only because we had a full patient list right away, but also because we had some very welcome visitors to the Oakridge clinic on Wednesday.

Optometrists from Manteca Rotary Club in California’s Central Valley came to our clinic

and provided prescriptions and eyeglasses to 40 or more people in one morning’s work.  They were cool—came in, knew exactly what to do, had obviously done it before and saw as many people as humanly possible in the time allowed.  Exactly the kind of group I love to work with; the maximum effect with the minimum fuss.

One thing that made their work really efficient was the little device they had with them—it was a Welch-Allyn device for scanning and identifying patients’ eye prescriptions.  When I heard optometrists were coming, we pulled out and dusted off the traditional optometrist machine sitting in the clinic building we use, but the device they had with them made it

look like a piece of obsolete medieval torture equipment. Fred, the optometrist scanned patients, gave them their prescriptions, and Renee (the former club president) gave them their glasses—both reading and distance.

If one of those were on station somewhere for a month, I think it could do about 2,000-3,000 patients.  That is an INSTANT, huge increase in someone’s quality of life.  Apparently the units are affordable, easy to learn to use, and of course small and portable.  We have GOT to try and get one of those.

It was great being back in clinic—plus, we have Dr. Holly with us as well.  We picked her

up at the airport in San Pedro Sula on our way back from Copan.  She is an Accident and Emergency Room doctor and Tropical Medicine specialist from the UK, and will be working with us for 3 months before joining the Flying Doctors in Africa.  It was wonderful to have so much help in clinic; Donna from Roatan Rotary was with us, Sky was running the front desk, Noah was doing his Thursday physio sessions.  I love it when the clinic is humming; ultrasounds and minor ops, consults…love it.

Our container from Direct Relief comes soon…can’t wait to distribute it among the clinics (and pack the 350 cases of IV fluids onboard to take to Haiti for the cholera relief).  So much to do in these last

weeks…just like the first time, we went, except this time we have already done it and have substantially continued to rebuild our ship ever since we set sail.  We are better equipped and more experienced than our first trip, and that was a success.

I am confident, a little scared (if you aren’t scared of the ocean then you have no business going out on it), and excited to return to Haiti.  It’ll be an 800-mile, uphill (upwind and up current) trip but with the right weather window we can do it.  Still have a lot to do first, but it is getting done every day…and probably will be right up to the day we leave!