Hudsonhubtimes.com - HHS graduates hope to bring better sight to India villagers

by Laura Freeman

Reporter

Hudson -- Two 2006 Hudson High School graduates are raising funds to help bring better vision to people in India.

Anna Dunn and Ryan Phillips, who have been friends since middle school, will volunteer next summer in Chennai, India, with Unite For Sight to provide eye care in rural villages surrounding Chennai.

Dunn is a junior at Case Western Reserve majoring in biology and hopes to become a doctor specializing in endocrinology. She'll go to India from July 1 to Aug. 20. She works as an intern at the Cleveland Metroparks Endocrinology Laboratory.

Phillips is a junior at the Ohio State University majoring in biology and plans to become a trauma doctor. She is an Army ROTC Cadet at OSU and will earn her medical degree in the military. She'll go to India from July 15 to Aug. 30.

Each woman must raise a minimum of $1,500 for Unite for Sight, a non-profit organization committed to improving eye health worldwide above their own expenses for the trip.

Dunn and Phillips also are collecting functional eye glasses to take with them on the trip. Residents can drop prescription eye glasses that are wearable -- not broken -- at Starbucks on South Main, Caribou Coffee on Park Lane or Drug Mart on Darrow Road before they leave in July.

In Chennai, they will screen for eye disease, implement education programs and coordinate sight-restoring surgery for children and adults.

Unite for Sight utilizes doctors, nurses, students and other volunteers from all walks of life for its eye care programs, and funds surgeries to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. It has provided eye care services to 600,000 people worldwide.

Dunn said one of her responsibilities will be to perform preliminary vision tests to diagnose cataracts, glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy, some of the causes of blindness.

Dunn said people who are blind from such eye diseases cannot work and have no money.

"The major issue is they can't get eyeglasses," Phillips said. "They can't see so they can't work and they can't provide for their families."

Dunn said villagers need someone to bring them to the Uma Eye Clinic in Chennai, where surgeons can perform the surgery.

"We are responsible to go to the village and follow up after surgery," Dunn said.

Dunn said she became interested in the program when the CEO of Unite for Sight contacted Case Western Reserve to start a chapter. She is the president of vision screenings and education programs for Unite For Sight Case Western.

"We coordinate vision screenings in the Cleveland area," Dunn said.

Dunn said she applied to go to India after a friend told her about the program. Her friend is in India now.

"I want to travel, and I thought it would be a good experience," Dunn said.

She said as a doctor, she wants to practice medicine on an international health level.

Phillips looks forward to assisting the surgeons with cataract surgery.

"I am interested in volunteer work for medicine," Phillips said. "With the army, they'll be taking me abroad a lot, and it was a good way to start."

Anyone interested in donating can write a check to Unite for Sight and mail it to Dunn at 727 Ashbrooke Way, Hudson 44236. They should note whether the donation is for Dunn or Phillips.

More information is available at www.uniteforsight.org.

E-mail: lfreeman@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3150