Volunteer

The Eye Health Institute usually makes two trips a year to Jamaica. Spring/Autumn.

We look for nurses, surgeons, eye doctors, and eye care students for our volunteer program. But it should be noted that we also take non medical personnel for general volunteering especially within school screenings. We also take volunteers with varied backgrounds and skills. We are currently seeking volunteers who have a background in construction, as we are going to be embarking on some renovations and expansions over the next several trips.

Jan helping with acuity at the 2016 clinic at Burnt Savannah

If you are interested in volunteering with EHI please send us an email. We’d love to know a little bit about you, please include why you would like to work with EHI, your qualifications and how you heard about us.

If you are an optometry student and are interested in interning with EHI please know that we take 2nd and 3rd year interns almost exclusively.

Volunteering with EHI is a unique experience. We hold eye screenings in remote areas where some of our patients have never seen a doctor before, let alone an eye doctor. Some of the conditions we encounter are very acute. Late stages of glaucoma and advanced stages of cataracts, to name a few. Exposing students to this broad view of eye health gives a deeper understanding of eye health and eye care in a global capacity.

Volunteering with EHI in Jamaica was an eye opening experience for me. I didn’t fully appreciate the level of need for eye-care in Jamaica until I saw it with my own eyes. The people we served did not have access to an alternative source for eye-care and would have continued to suffer from preventable and treatable conditions if EHI wasn’t there to intervene. I greatly benefited from the clinical experience that I gained from providing direct patient care during the trip. The best part was that I was always paired with an experienced clinician that I could count on for help when I needed it. It was a very rewarding experience and one that I will remember for the rest of my life. I will definitely be back to Jamaica to volunteer with EHI in the future. –Fayiz Mahgoub Spring 2016 intern from Western University School of Optometry