Ghana

I traveled to Accra, Ghana in 2009 for my first clinical mission trip. It was a memorable trip because it was the first of many to come.

I saw an evisceration procedure with the local ophthalmologist, Dr. James Clark, in which he removed the internal contents of an eye that had a corneal abrasion.  The patient was a little boy who traveled all the way from Togo, the neighboring country, with his mom once she found out we were providing eye care at the free clinic in Accra. His condition was the result of a knife cut on his eye. In the U.S. his eye could have been treated easily with antibiotics and a bandage contact lens. However, his eye wasn’t treated and he developed a large granular protrusion from his cornea.

We saw roughly 400 patients and had a team of two doctors, two nurses, and three medical students.

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