At the beginning of this year I became involved in the Fellowship of Christian Optometrists (FCO) Organization at Ohio State and never imagined the great things that I would experience in doing so. The organization has created an amazing support network of friends in all four years of Optometry that has really helped me. It is through this organization that I had the amazing opportunity to go to Jamaica just a week ago. Frankly it is quite difficult to put into words how amazing this trip truly was. We left for Jamaica from Columbus on Sunday March 9th and arrived in Montego Bay, Jamaica that afternoon. We traveled to Frome, Jamaica where we stayed at the Gamertsfelder Mission Center (GMC) Mission House. The GMC has been set up by Dr. Douglas McCloy and operates year round. Within the GMC there is also a clinic for Doctors, Dentists, and Surgeons to come in and provide services. In fact the week before we were there, there was a surgery team that had come down and done many pterygium surgery removals on local patients. On a weekly basis the clinic is open on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday seeing patients from 9am-5pm. Patients come from all over the area around Frome to be seen at the clinic. Patients usually come early in the morning and could sit there waiting all day to be seen by the doctors.

We stayed in the beautiful mission house right next to the GMC Clinic. There were 14 (7 First Years and 7 Second Years) Students from FCO that went together. Since there were so many of us down there, Dr. McCloy arranged for us to go out into the area high schools to do school screenings to find kids that needed vision care. Therefore, I went to Grangehill High School on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. At this High School we screened 440 kids in three days. This was quite an amazing experience to get to interact with the Jamaican kids all while practicing some of my newly learned skills for Optometry. We found some pretty interesting health issues in the kids even outside of vision issues. Overall, it was pretty exciting to see many health issues that we have been learning about in the classroom and educate the patient on the importance of coming in for a full eye exam to start treatment. Another group of us went to another high school and even a primary school to examine younger kids and saw around 370 kids. While we were out in the schools, the Second Year Optometry Students were in the GMC Clinic helping the Doctors see the patients there. They got to see a lot of the post-operational patients from the pterygium surgeries and also patients with other interesting pathologies. Overall between the three locations that the 14 of us separated out too, we interacted with a total of 1,000 patients in three days.

Even though we were working hard in the clinic and schools we still had plenty of time to relax and see the beautiful island of Jamaica. On Wednesday we went zip-lining over waterfalls. And on Wednesday night we got to attend a Jamaican Nazarene Church Service. This was very interesting and exciting to experience. Finally on Friday we spent the day at the beautiful Negril beach enjoying the blue water and even snorkeling and kayaking. At the end of the day we went to Rick’s Café and jumped off of a 40 foot cliff into the ocean, which was quite exhilarating. Overall the trip was amazing! It was great to practice my optometric skills and to interact with the Jamaican kids. It was incredible to see how polite and grateful the kids were to us. I am already counting down the days until we go back next year!