ASCRS News: ASCRS Foundation News
September 2022
by Molly Gascoigne
ASCRS Foundation Director of Development
The ASCRS Foundation’s international and domestic missions support physician education and provide humanitarian cataract care. Operation Sight, the ASCRS Foundation’s domestic charitable cataract surgery program, is key to serving underinsured and uninsured Americans who fall under the radar for care. With 750 volunteers dedicated to making cataract care accessible in their local community, the immeasurable impact is profound.
Operation Sight receives an ever-growing number of patient inquiries daily. Patients are overwhelmingly in financial distress without their sight, losing their employment, and consequently, their insurance. The urgency to help patients in need has always been pressing, but now it is even more time sensitive to get patients their sight back so they can return to work, support their families, and regain their independence.
Operation Sight celebrates National Sight Week, coinciding with World Sight Day, to recognize the impact its volunteers have on changing patients’ lives. This important week grows awareness for the year-long program, celebrates the volunteers that make it possible, and most importantly, gives sight to more patients in need. Whether you are a registered Operation Sight volunteer or looking to give back to your local community for the first time, National Sight Week is the perfect opportunity to get involved.
This year’s National Sight Week will be held October 9–15 and is a call to all members of the ophthalmic community to give sight and remove patients from the waitlist. The Foundation is grateful for the growing list of volunteer locations and surgeons for their impact in 2022.
Provide or pledge a charitable cataract surgery through Operation Sight in 2022. Now is the time to get involved. Operation Sight provides ophthalmologists and practices the opportunity to provide charitable care to a pre-screened patient in need within their own community. With your support, the Foundation will add your name and practice to the Foundation’s recognition page.
[template id=14580]Donate to help an Operation Sight patient in need. Your generosity will give the gift of sight to a patient eagerly awaiting care. Visit www.ascrsfoundation.org/donate to make your donation today.
Stay tuned for more information on National Sight Week via ASCRS Foundation communications and social media. For questions regarding National Sight Week or Operation Sight, visit www.ascrsfoundation.org/operationsight or contact Rachel Goode, Program Manager, at rgoode@ascrs.org.
“There’s a reason you chose to be an ophthalmologist. Amidst the daily problems of staffing an office, running a business, and meeting a payroll, it’s often easy to lose sight of that reason. Operation Sight brings me back every week to the reason I do what I do. It’s the purest expression of my best self. It reminds me daily of the remarkable magic trick every ophthalmologist knows and its capacity to change the world.”
Jeffrey Levenson, MD
“I am able to get hard-working individuals back to work, something the workforce needs now more than ever. These patients want to work but are unable to due to their visual impairment. By allowing patients to regain vision, we as Operation Sight volunteer surgeons make a valuable contribution to our local communities. The gratitude you receive from your Operation Sight patients is more than enough payment and helps remind you why you went into ophthalmology in the first place.”
Reena Patel, MD
“It is an honor and blessing to help an Operation Sight patient and be partnered with a national organization helping to restore sight in underserved populations. … Many of these patients have cataracts that are much more advanced than our insured patients. Removing the patch from someone who had bilateral hand motion vision prior to surgery and watching them experience good vision once more is priceless.”
Robert Rice, MD
“If you feel like you’ve been blessed and want to give back to your community, this is the perfect way. You have unique skills that not everyone can give back to the community. Many more people have the ability to volunteer at the soup kitchen than who can volunteer to do cataract surgery.”
Michael Graham, MD
“We are already so well trained to do cataract surgery and just adding one patient a month will really help impact the local community. There is no minimum requirement and obviously no upper limit to the patients you can help. We all know that cataract surgery can make a huge difference in someone’s life. Why not help those who don’t have the resources for cataract surgery?”
Regina Sun, MD
Contact
Gascoigne: info@ascrsfoundation.org
