Tag: Ghana

Midpoint Check-In from UNITE FOR SIGHT in Ghana

The midpoint of my internship with Unite For Sight finds me just shy of four weeks in Ghana. Since beginning my internship twenty-six days ago, I have completed my rotation with Northwestern Eye Centre, completed my first rotation with Save the Nation’s Sight Clinic in Twifo Praso (Central Region), met the supervising ophthalmologist and medical director of Save the Nation’s Sight Clinic, and observed the STNSC staff perform life-changing cataract and pterygium surgeries. I am now starting my second rotation with Save the Nation’s Sight Clinic in Denu of the Volta Region.

Introducing the outreach team’s best friend: the Sight Mobile!

 

 

Professional & Pink…who knew Save the Nation’s Sight Clinic had such bold style?

 

I am happy to say that I am making great progress with my defined learning goals. My overarching learning goal was to engage my HSSP background and coursework through hands-on experiences in the field of public health. As a Unite For Sight Global Impact Fellow, I have been blessed with the privilege of working with the most basic level of the local eye clinics: the outreach team. Everyday, I am on the ground with the team of optometrists, ophthalmic nurses, dispensing opticians, and local volunteers locating patients in need of quality eye care. I am constantly taking notes on what I see, reflecting on the ins and outs of the local health infrastructure, and developing strategies to improve the implementation and administration of our global health practices.

At this stage of my stay, I am most proud of my patience. I pride myself on being a very patient person, but I was still concerned with how challenging the language barrier would be, especially in a medical setting. English is the official language of Ghana, but it definitely isn’t the most widely spoken tongue amongst the populations I work with. Still, I realized my proficiency in Twi, the most prominent language amongst my regions, could only get better. So I practiced the phrases that I knew, learned several new ones, tried really hard to perfect the Ghanaian intonations, and leaned on my team too many times to count. A month in, I was able to conduct an entire visual acuity screening in Twi, an accomplishment that only bolstered my confidence going forward!

The academic skills I’m building are quite evident from my work within the internship. However, I feel that I am building life skills more than anything else. I’m starting from scratch and learning to immerse myself within an entirely different culture. I’m learning a new language, learning about new foods, learning new social cues and norms…I’m learning to be humbled. I’m building skills in teamwork, dream work, and the open mind. My skill set will be a testament to how amazingly beautiful the human spirit can be. I’m a cliché: living life to the fullest. And I am so honored to be performing justice work with an amazing group of health professionals for a nation that inspires me to want to be a better person each and every day.

 

To lean more about Dr. Baah, the founder and medical director of Save the Nation’s Sight Clinic, please select the link below:

http://www.uniteforsight.org/volunteer-abroad/ghana/villages-preparation/baah-history 

 

To learn more about the importance of sustainable development in eye care, please select the link below:

http://www.uniteforsight.org/what-we-do/sustainable-development 

First week at UNITE FOR SIGHT in Ghana

This June and July I am interning/volunteering with Unite For Sight (UFS) in Ghana.

Unite For Sight is a non-profit organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. UFS partners with local eye clinics in three developing countries: Honduras, India, and Ghana. Patients receive free eye care and surgeries funded by UFS so that no patient suffers due to lack of financial resources. In addition to being a leader in providing cost-effective care to the world’s poorest people, UFS’ Global Health University trains and nurtures the next generation of global health leaders.

As a Unite For Sight Global Impact Fellow, I am to assist the local eye clinics with any of their needs and participate in urban and rural community outreaches. My specific responsibilities include: registering patients (taking down introductory information like name, age, gender), conducting visual acuity screenings (testing the seeing power of each eye, one-at-a-time), distributing eyeglasses alongside the dispensing optician (reading glasses, distance glasses, sunglasses), writing receipts for patients who purchase eyeglasses and/or medications, and entering said patients’ data into the eye clinic’s database for tracking and referral purposes (chief complaint, primary diagnosis, doctor’s prescription, etc). We are also required to fundraise monies for surgeries, collect eyeglasses for the eye clinics to distribute, and complete Global Health & Impact training in preparation for our travels abroad.

I came across Unite for Sight on the “Pre-Health Advising” page of the Brandeis University website two summers ago. I discovered that at least three other Brandeis students had participated in this same program and so I reached out specifically to one of these students and asked for his thoughts. He could say nothing but great things about UFS, and recommended that I apply…and so the rest is history!

My first week with Unite For Sight was not too much of a surprise. I was required to complete the Global Health & Impact training long before I even stepped foot on the plane, so I was already familiar with many of the eye clinics, their staffs, and their global health delivery models. I spent my first week engaging in outreach work with North Western Eye Centre and three other American volunteers. We worked with communities in the Greater Accra and Central Regions of Ghana and saw anywhere from 50 to 80 patients a day. I quickly learned the difference in diagnosing many of the eye pathologies I encountered in training, (i.e. a corneal scar versus a cataract), and bonded with the team of optometrists, nurses, interns, drivers, and other volunteers.

Unite For Sight: That’s the motto!

Photo Source

I feel more and more Ghanaian everyday…check out my colors!

Photo Source

My learning expectations for this summer are to engage in my coursework through hands-on experiences in the field of public health. As a Health: Science, Society, and Policy major, I am expected to fulfill a “hands on experience,” which grants me the opportunity to engage academic material experientially in a setting related to either health or health care. After venturing to and from Ghana, I will have come away with a stronger understanding of the social determinants of health and disease and the impacts of social inequality on health in Ghana, by having become part of a global health organization that initiates sustainable health care frameworks in the developing world.

Want to learn more about Unite For Sight and/or Ghana? Please check out the links below:

http://www.uniteforsight.org/

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ghana

– Darrell Byrd ’13