Is the Unite For Sight program a hands-on clinical experience?
Yes, the program is a fully hands-on clinical experience. All volunteers participate in clinical service while assisting eye doctors in rural villages, refugee camps, and slums. Volunteers are immersed in international health and development programs while providing eye care to patients living in extreme poverty. While each program location varies slightly, the general program model remains identical. Volunteers assist the eye clinic’s staff in all aspects of the eye care programs. They take patient history, test visual acuity, assist the eye doctors with the examination, distribute medication and eyeglasses prescribed by the eye doctors, provide eye health education in the villages and schools, and help with the coordination of patient surgeries. Volunteers also have an opportunity to observe the surgeries provided at the eye clinic. The previously blind patients leave clinic after surgery with restored sight. A recent Unite For Sight medical student volunteer in Ghana wrote: “I can h
