Volunteering her time to help out others in other countries is not a new concept for Dr. Melissa Pfeffer, an optometrist at LaFollette Eye Clinic in LaFollette, Tenn.
In fact, it was her very first optometric mission trip to Trinidad 2006 that helped solidify her decision to attend optometry school. "I was able to dispense my first pair of glasses to an 8-year-old boy and when I handed them to him, his entire face just lit up," Pfeffer recalled. "He could see the world clearly for the first time. And I knew that’s what I wanted to do."
Since then, Pfeffer has participated in an optometric mission trip to Trinidad and Haiti in 2014 and most recently a mission trip to Guatemala City in March of this year, during which she and her team treated about 100 patients a day for an entire week.
Literally Life-Changing
During the week-long mission trip, Pfeffer and her team of eight volunteers traveled to a different location each day and conducted a complete eye exam on each patient, looking at both the front and back of the eye. Patient eye pressures were also checked, as well as their visual acuity using a visual acuity test with symbols rather than letters as none on Pfeffer's team spoke Spanish. However, translators on-hand helped her team communicate with patients.
Additionally, the mission team brought different types of eye drops with them — such as allergy drops, glaucoma drops and artificial tears — to be given to patients, as well as over 1,000 pairs of glasses donated by the Campbell County Lions Club and Pfeffer's own patients.
"Without glasses, some of them cannot function in society — it’s literally life-changing for them," Pfeffer explained. "Some of them told us they were unable to get a job because they couldn’t see to read and all they needed was reading glasses — something that we can get for a dollar here in the U.S. they had zero access to."
Preparation & Training
To prep for a mission trip such as this, Pfeffer said planning began in December 2015 and the group met about once a month until the trip. Conducted through the Calvary Baptist Church in Knoxville, the mission trip included other health practitioners such a primary care physicians, nurses and pharmacists, as well as a construction team to help fix or build homes in the Guatemala City area.
Additionally, Pfeffer needed time to train her team of eight volunteers, none of whom had any eye care background. The volunteers were trained by Pfeffer on how to take a case history, use a handheld autorefractor, check eye pressure and visual acuity, and dispense glasses.
Pfeffer said she was happy to donate her time to train the volunteers as they helped her out tremendously during the mission trip. "Otherwise it would have taken us a lot more time and I would have seen a lot less patients doing all the work-up, so it helped me out a lot," she explained. "It wasn’t a big of deal to train them — they were very kind and willing to learn. One guy even after the trip said he might want to be an optometrist."
It’s So Worth It
Now after a few months back in the U.S., Pfeffer is starting to gear up to return to Guatemala City in January 2017 as part of a team that will provide follow-up cataract surgeries to a number of patients she saw during her March trip. According to Pfeffer, she will be accompanying an ophthalmologist who is donating his time to perform the surgeries while she will be providing post-operative care.
Pfeffer said this is the first time they will be able to go back and help patients with their cataracts. "When your cataracts get to a certain point no glasses will fix your vision," she added. "You have these people who don’t necessarily understand that and then we (have to) say we’re sorry, we can’t help you today, but in the future maybe we can. This is the first time we’re actually going to see it come to fruition, so it’s really exciting."
For optometrists who are considering taking part in an optometric mission trip, Pfeffer said there's lots of opportunities out there and encourages optometrists to partner with other local practitioners to try to offer total body health care.
Plus, Pfeffer added, they will get so much from the experience. "Every single time we’ve gone, the patients have said we’ve never seen an eye doctor," she said. "It's so little of your time just to volunteer for a week. Don't let anything hold you back because it's so worth it."
For optometrists who may have questions about partaking in a mission trip, Pfeffer invites them to contact her via email at [email protected].