Mission to Mexico

I went on a three day trip to Mexico to help provide eye care to the people of Mexico.

Ate breakfast at 730. I ordered eggs with refried beans.

We started clinic at 800 . It took us about two hours to set everything up in optical.

My job for the first part of the day was to collect auto refractions. I gave my refractions to the ophthalmologist. He looked up the closest match out of 1000 glasses we brought with us.

The optician would then see how the glasses fit then make adjustments to help the glasses fit better.

For lunch we ate pizza.

After lunch Jamie, the COT (Certified Ophthalmic Technician) on site, showed me how to do manual keratometry. I spent the rest of the day practicing keratometry.

I remember reading about keratometry for my COA (Certified Ophthalmic Technician) , but I didn’t have to know too much.

If you want to know more about keratometry I will add a link to the study guide on it soon.

We ended when the work day was over which was about 5pm.

That night we went to a home of one of the rotary members who we’re sponsoring the event. We ate mole for dinner and had a variety of cakes for dessert.

This is the plate of food I ate the first night in Mexico.

For entertainment we had a live guitar player and watched some traditional dancing.

The next day I spent the morning taking photos.

Apparently, in Mexico you can take pictures of surgeries so I jumped in and took a few photos with one of the doctors cameras.

After taking pictures of the surgery the scrub tech and doctor let me try being a scrub tech. I will be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing. I had _a lot of supervision_ and by a lot I mean that I just waited to be told what to do. It was great! I had a blast!

For those who may be reading this who don’t know what a scrub tech is I will explain a little. A scrub tech is the technician who hands the instruments to the doctor. They at responsoble for keeping the instruments clean and preparing instruments for the doctor.

A good tech reads the mind of the doctor and knows the surgery backwards and forwards.

We got off early the second day and got a little tour of the surrounding area.

We were in Northern Mexico particularly in the Mormon Colonies in Mexico.

This was the LDS (Latter Day Saint) temple in Colonia Juarez.

When the work day was done it was time to party again!

That night we had carne asada and ice cream.

The is a picture of Miguel(left) and me (right). Miguel is a member of the rotary club in Mexico. The rotary club prescreen all of the patients before we saw them. They also provided the food and fun!

On the morning of our last day we took off the patches of the patients that had cataract surgery.

It was amazing to see the faces of the patients. Many of them had not seen clearly in years.

Check out my New Study Guide Study For the Certified Ophthalmic Assistant Exam