Eye Associates of Boca Raton conducts its Gift of Sight program every year on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. “We work with a local charity clinic, Caridad Clinic, which takes care of migrant workers and the working poor who can’t afford health insurance,” says Howard Goldman, MD, chief executive officer of the Eye Associates of Boca Raton. “They send us consults and eye surgeries that they can’t handle on site. They have surgeons, mostly retired ophthalmologists, there. We do 20 to 22 cases that one day and cover all costs.”
A reporter from WPTV News Channel 5 interviews a cataract surgery patient at the Eye Associates of Boca Raton surgery center.
This year marks the fifth year that Eye Associates of Boca Raton, which is co-owned by AmSurg and local physicians, has offered its Gift of Sight program. “Our five surgeons, all of our RNs (4 to 5), and the two scrub technicians at the surgery center join in,” Goldman says. “Our two anesthesiologists, doctors Steven Kiffel
and Michelle Dresner, provide service without charge as well. The Caridad Clinic sends the patients to us to examine before surgery, and we see them the day after surgery. Then they go back to Caridad for the balance of their postoperative care.”
Some of the patients speak English, and the surgery center has translators for the ones who don’t. Some of the patients speak only Creole and Spanish.
“It’s a good feeling, obviously, to restore vision,” Goldman says. “These are folks who don’t have regular care, so when they come to us, they are blind. And then, after surgery, they can see! They can see their children, their grandchildren, and they are joyous.”
Goldman also has been doing charity care with Surgical Eye Expeditions, based in California, for many years. “1981 was the first time I went on a mission overseas. I’ve been to Jamaica, Mexico, Guyana, Panama and Ecuador with them. Since September 11, 2001, it’s been hard to send surgeons overseas with something like 60 boxes and trunks of equipment. We developed this program recently, and I’m glad we are doing this in the US. We also realize there are many people who make this possible other than us. It is the equipment, the staff and everyone that comes together that make it successful.”