I’ve been feeling that way lately. One has to reflect on accomplishments – or lack thereof – when their time at a job comes to an end. When reflecting on our lack of accomplishment here, and the expected closure of the optometry faculty in the very near future I began to wonder how in the world I ended up in Nablus, Palestine with a person as great as Swell. What turns did my life take to bring me to the middle of no-where with no money, no heat, and no future job prospects?
Well during this reflection I decided that it all began on that fateful day that I decided it would be best to cross the street in the crosswalk rather than jay-walking. I could go back even further but if I went back that far it became the government’s fault and I didn’t want to blame the Government of Canada for my current situation – I should take some responsibility for my life path. I shouldn’t credit (blame?) my current life on the idiot bureaucrats who developed, designed, and implemented every young Canadian child of my generation’s twice yearly torture. My current life couldn’t possibly have been caused by the Canada Fitness Test! Or could it? But like I said, I decided not to go that far back in my nostalgia instead my being in Palestine is the direct cause of deciding to use a crosswalk rather than jaywalk.
On December 7, 1993 (was it really that long ago?) in my grade 12 year (12th grade for the Americans) I was standing on the curb in front of my high school contemplating crossing the street to go to the bank in the mall. I was pretty much in the middle of two cross walks. Earlier in the week the school’s police officer made an announcement saying that he was going to start ticketing jaywalkers. I decided I didn’t want a ticket so I would do the responsible thing and head to the crosswalk.
The next thing I remember is being surrounded by firemen and paramedics. I vaguely remember the ambulance ride (I believe I said something about how girls would dig my new scars – but that was the concussion talking. If you knew me when I was in high school you’d know that i) girls wouldn’t dig me with or without scars and ii) I didn’t much care if they did or didn’t), I definitely remember the next 14 years (has it really been that long?) of pain. If you haven’t been able to read between the lines (and most of you don’t even need to because you know all my stories) my decision to go to the crosswalk to cross the street allowed a crazy old woman enough time to turn a corner, pick up some speed and drive into me. (I was later told that not only did she not drive more cautiously despite being in a school zone, near two crosswalks on a school day, but she completely ignored the other car(s?) stopped to let a large group of people cross the street).
How does getting hit by a car 14 years ago lead me to Palestine today? I never said this would be a short reflection. Obviously it isn’t going to be so you’re free to go and get a snack. Get some coffee. Put a book mark on this page and come back to it later. You could quit reading – that would be ok to. You might miss something big though. You wouldn’t want that would you?
The “incident” cut short the greatest middle-distance running career known to man – well it wasn’t really a career, nor was it all that great, but it was fun while it lasted and I have a wall full of medals to show that I could run faster than a bunch of kids who didn’t train very hard or much care about track. Go Me!
Anyway, the cutting short of my illustrious track career led me to the office of the guidance counselor at my wonderful high school. I was there to talk to about scholarships that I might be missing out on due to losing my ’93-’94 track season (and it would turn out every season from that point forward but that is another – albeit more exciting – story). It also turns out that the information garnered about athletic scholarships during that meeting would not be needed because I was about to get screwed by my lawyer, and the insurance company lawyer (oddly enough it is my recollection that my “lawyer” used to work with the insurance company… and the insurance company screwed over my parents after Edmonton’s Black Friday tornado – we live in a just and fair world).
While I was sitting in the waiting area waiting for my turn with the guidance counselor I couldn’t help but overhear him speaking with another student. I wasn’t eavesdropping. I swear. He had his door open and he was…ummmm… kinda loud (what kind of guidance counselor guides with his door open? Shows you what kind of high school I went to. By the way did you know they had like a little bed near the guidance counselors’ offices? I think it was for if you were sick or something – never knew about that bed before that fateful day.) As he was
Guidance Counselor “What do you want to do next year?”
Student”Go to University (college for you Americans – if you accuse a Canadian university student of going to college be prepared for a beat down!)
Me to myself of course “Me too!”
GC “What for?”
Student “Dunno.”
Me to myself of course “Me neither.”
GC “I see that you’re doing very well in your sciences.”
Me to myself of course “I bet I’m doing better!”
GC “I suggest to all my students who are doing well in their sciences to consider optometry as a profession. It’s clean, respected profession. It allows for a good lifestyle both in the amount of money you can make and the lack of being on-call, etc.”
Student Saying, “Sure, thanks” but meaning “shut-up and let me go home”.
Me to myself of course “Heeeey now! I never thought of that before. That actually sounds pretty cool.”
And so began the research into how to become an optometrist. Well actually the research involved me going home and telling everyone I wanted to become an optometrist and looking in the University of Alberta catalogue for Pre-optometry courses. I also visited the optometry booth at the career fair held later that year. Didn’t really do much career research, just kinda jumped right in. Oops.
So I applied to the U of A. Was accepted in the Faculty of Science and started down the path to becoming an optometrist (Well there was the small hiccup of forgetting to send in my final transcripts, realizing the day AFTER they were due that I had neglected to do it and finding out I was no longer a U of A student. I quickly remedied that with a letter to one of the associate deans begging him to allow me to keep my seat as I had already registered for classes, etc.)
My science education was uneventful. I took classes. I did well in them. I took some more classes did well in them. I took biochemistry and didn’t do so well in it. Then I took some other classes and did well in them. Eventually it was third year and I needed to find a summer job. I found one at Lenscrafters and would become a lab tech. That was the beginning of the end.
Edited early evening 05/06/07 there is a point to this but its going to take a while
Throughout my first few years of my undergraduate school I became more and more interested in issues related to social justice and the disparity that exists in the world. This was just a passing interest. I would be interested read a couple of papers, magazines, etc. and then leave the ideas behind for a little while. The interest was there and then I took a job at Lenscrafters where two of my 4 co-workers were Anarchists.
A strange place for Anarchists to work but work there they did. It was a lot of fun. We would listen to punk, hard-core, rap music at a terrible volume, they would rant about the evils of the corporate world. They would bring in articles about the torture of the East Timorese. They didn’t just talk though they were socially active. They would taunt me mercilessly, which was fine. One of the Anarchists, prior to his being fired (which is also a good story – and it does involve me, albeit indirectly – but that story is for another day), went on a Gift of Sight Trip to, I believe, Nicaragua. He didn’t say much about the “health-care” aspect of the trip but did say it was a good time. Those guys made me think a lot about what I believe. A lot. A whole lot. They changed me in many ways, most of them good. The part-time love affair with social concerns became more and more a full-time one. More reading, more research.
His Gift of Sight trip was my first exposure to Optometry related public health. I had always had the idea to do something similar to Gift of Sight upon graduation from optometry school. It’s a romantic idea and I think that’s what makes vision camps so attractive to optometrists. Imagine, if you will, that you’re well educated – 8 years of post-secondary education. You know that injustice exists in the world, you know that people can’t get eye exams/glasses due to the cost and the lack of availability. What can you do about that? Well you can strap on a back pack. Throw some basic equipment in said backpack and fly into the jungles of Central and South America to provide these poor people with eye exams. Better yet you’ll also give them some recycled glasses. As the sun shines off your tanned face, as the sweat drips off your brow you can step back and look at a village full of people who you’ve saved. If it weren’t for your knowledge, if it weren’t for your sacrifice this village would be full of people who couldn’t see clearly. The great white saviour indeed.
My excitement for optometry school was growing as my excitement for a degree in science waned. I hated the last couple of years at the U of A. I was running on the cross-country team – slower and more crippled than 3 years prior – and it was fun. Sitting through class after class to learn stuff I would never consider again was not so much fun. During my third year of undergrad I applied to Pacific University College of Optometry. I was not accepted.
Deep depression set in… nah, not really. I didn’t expect to get in. I phoned the admissions people to ask why I didn’t get in. Not surprisingly it was because I didn’t do the mandatory observation of an optometrist. We were required to observe an optometrist(s) for 30 or 40 hours prior to our application. I didn’t and I didn’t lie about it, although they don’t really check, and that is why I wasn’t accepted. I tried to do the observation but nobody was really willing to let me. I sent out a bunch of letters, stopped in at a few places to ask, got discouraged and didn’t try hard. One guy did call to inform me that a) he was retired and b) I should really just go to dental school. Thanks a lot... but then again... there was wisdom in those words.
The funny thing is I would learn later that the class for the year I wasn’t accepted was the worst class in the history of the school. They even started calling people off of the rejected list because they couldn’t fill the class. They couldn’t fill the class because they didn’t do rolling admissions that year. All the other schools did. So when a student found out they were in school X in February Pacific kind of missed out on interviewing/accepting them because the student was already in somewhere and probably happy to save the money on an interview.
Anyway, didn’t care. I applied last minute and only applied because I said that I would try to get in after three years of undergrad. I was very happy to go back to the U. of A. and take more boring classes and try to run another year of cross country.
When I first thought about becoming an optometrist I was certain that I would go to the only English speaking optometry school in Canada – the University of Waterloo. During my first or second year at the U. of A. a Pacific University representative came to the school to interview prospective students and give a little recruitment speech. She convinced me without speaking to me directly to consider Pacific as well as Waterloo.
I was convinced to consider Pacific for three reasons (and ended up only applying to Pacific for these same reasons):
1) Amigos – a student run group that did multiple eye missions every year
2) Nike – The optometry school has a close relationship with Nike and is very active in product development and vision training in athletes
3) The Master of Education option – during the four years spent at Pacific you could get an OD degree and a M.Ed. degree. The M.Ed. degree is supposed to expose you to ideas related to education and you are to combine the degrees to help students with vision problems.
I did my required observation that next year, I was able to observe the optometrist that worked next to my Lenscrafters as well as a couple of other places. Fourth year of undergrad went by in a flash. I was accepted to optometry school very early in the cycle. Before Christmas if I remember correctly. So much for any motivation I had for the last semester of school.
Before my arrival at Pacific as I did more reading and more listening I decided that I didn’t want to have any part in the Nike connection at Pacific. Evil corporation and all. So I was left with two reasons to attend Pacific. Both of those would soon fall by the wayside as well.
When optometry school started we had a welcome banquet for all the new students. Two very interesting things happened the night of that first banquet. 1) We had disgusting salmon and 2) I sat next to a girl who would love me from that moment forth.
She fell in love with me because she saw that I was wearing a The Kry T-Shirt (a band you’ve never heard of and I don’t encourage you to look for) earlier in the day and I was, of course wearing my MxPx work jacket that night (a band that you may have heard of – they had a pepsi commercial – which I’ll forgive them for – and you can feel free to look them up).
My first words to my future wife were: “Is anyone sitting here?” Thus began a great love... well it didn't really begin here. That was the first thing I said to her but I think it was also the last thing I said to her that year. Oops.
School started. It wasn’t easy but it wasn’t tremendously hard. Put in some effort you get good grades. Sometime during the first semester Amigos started recruiting. When they said that they were going to Palestine during the summer as one of their 4 or 5 trips I was hooked. I volunteered left right and center to collect points in the hope that I would have more points than other first years so that I could go.
I was lucky enough to get to go.
Also during the first semester of optometry school I came to the startling realization that school was very, very expensive in the US. There was no way I could afford to take the extra classes to get the M.Ed. Besides why would I want to sacrifice prime hang out having fun time with extra classes. Who in their right mind would want more education when they could go down to Fred Meyer on a Friday night to listen to music? Yes I said listen, not buy. Being poor my optometry friends and I would go to the local(ish) department store on Friday nights and put CDs under the little scanner thing that lets you listen to a preview of the CD. No, we didn’t buy them. Yes we were bored. Good times.
Also during my first semester my parents were kind enough to get my 1970 VW bus fixed up and have my sisters drive it down – that is a LONG drive to surprise me with it. I love that car(s). (Cars because it’s a slight combination of my first bus [bus + moose = dead bus and dead moose – but that’s another, albeit far more interesting story] and my second one).
My bus, my way of dressing and my political views would soon anger most of my classmates – actually it was probably all but one.
Like I said I got to go to Palestine. That was when the final bubble in my three reasons to go to Pacific instead of Waterloo was burst.
Edited just before noon 05/07/07 Thanks for the comments thus far. I'll get to my point eventually - although I do believe that I'm beginning to forget what my point really was... Gilda, Gilda, Gilda. We're only at the end of the first year of Optometry school. I haven't even told you about my first trip to Palestine. We've got 8 years to go!
Edited mid-afternoon 05/07/07 There really is a point coming...I think
My trip to Palestine was my first trip outside of North America. It opened my eyes both to the suffering of the Palestinian people and the problem of vision camps.
The flight from Oregon to Israel was long. We were tired, hungry, dirty by the time we arrived and I (we) weren’t prepared for what Israeli customs had in store for us.
We arrived with large cardboard boxes full of recycled spectacles and testing equipment. Everything of value (our clothes and out expensive diagnostic equipment) was in our carry-on luggage – not because we were smart but because there was no room in the checked-in luggage.
We picked up our many, many boxes and they were promptly confiscated by the customs agents. We wouldn’t see them again for two or three days.
Our first clinic location was in the West Bank near Bethlehem. With the majority of equipment held up in customs we started our work using the equipment we carried in our carry-on luggage and photocopied eye charts.
This was when I first began to question the work we were doing. I was led to believe prior to this trip that there was no way for these folks to get eye exams. I asked myself: “Self, where did these copied eye charts come from? I think they came from an eye doctor's. Self, why couldn’t these people just go there for an eye exam?”
We examined the patients – being a newly minted first year and knowing next to nothing I did very little. We examined the patients. Those who needed spectacles were told to return in a day or two when our equipment and recycled glasses would, hopefully, be rescued from the hands of the
A number of days later as we continued to see patients our equipment and glasses were rescued and brought to our location. (In order to get the glasses/equipment to the West Bank we required i) A lawyer, ii) Bribe Money, iii) the Hiring of Taxis, iv) Those who went to retrieve it from the airport to be held at gunpoint while the boxes were searched at multiple checkpoints. One of the women was hysterical for the rest of the day as she didn’t appreciate the whole gun being pointed at her thing.)
“Self, that seems like a lot of time, effort, and money to get these used glasses into this country. I’m sure the patients will be so appreciative though.”
Wrong.
We gave the patient’s poor quality examinations (if I was part of it, it had to be poor quality), we kept their records (so much for the idea of follow-up, and patient understanding of their condition), and we gave them spectacles they didn’t much appreciate.
People are proud everywhere you go. Nobody wants garbage. Nobody. I can’t see in the distance but I’m not going to wear over-sized glasses that give me mediocre vision in one eye and terrible vision in the other. (Most of you don’t know this but it is hard, I would argue impossible to find a pair of glasses from a very limited selection that matches the patient’s prescription in both eyes, especially when they are organized by the right eye only.)
We did no exit testing. “Here these are for you. Can you see?” “Yes? Good. Bye. Next.”
“Self, where’s my village of poor little Arabic people so thankful for my efforts that they decide to build a statue in my honour?”
Off to the Gaza strip.
Group (excluding me) – “Great white saviour’s indeed!”
PLO – “Ummmm… Why are you here?”
Group (excluding me) – “We are here to do eye exams and dispense recycled spectacles. Remember? We asked you for permission to come.”
PLO – “Ummmm… Please go away. We will solve our visual health needs on our own.”
Group (excluding me) – “But we came from so far, we worked so hard, we have so much good to do!”
PLO – “Ummmm… Thank you for coming from so far away. We will give you tours of the refugee camps but we don’t want you to see patients.”
Group (excluding me) – “But we are so well trained and we have RECYCLED GLASSES!!!
PLO – “Ok you can see patients. We will take you to some schools and let you do your ‘work’”
Group – “Great white saviour’s indeed!”
Me – “Self, why don’t they want us here? I thought they were going to adore our efforts, I thought this was the solution to eye health care in developing countries. Have I been misled? Harrumph”
I loved this trip. I saw an Arab-American man be mistreated at every turn by the Israeli Defense Forces. I saw children being yelled at by the IDF because they didn’t have the right documentation to travel 20 miles from their home. They could go 10 miles, but 20 miles was too much. We were searched, we were questioned, we had our belongings confiscated temporarily.
I learned so much. I learned that I loved the downtrodden, the oppressed. I loved the orphan and the widow. I wanted to work toward ending injustice. I learned that my dream of going on annual vision camps to save the poor from needless blurry vision might not be something that can become a reality – it just might not be the solution to the visual health care needs of the world’s poor. Later I would learn that somehow, somewhere, I was genetically destined to think about the world’s problems from a public health standpoint.
Crap.
I was soon to learn that public health and optometry is not a marriage that many optometrists are comfortable with.
I returned from Palestine. Slept at a hotel for one night. Hopped in my bus (oh how I miss thee) and drove to Edmonton where I was hired as a security guard. My imposing physique did it I’m sure. Five years of post-secondary education and I was a security guard. Beats one of my Optometry friends – he spent the summer as a window washer. Ha!
Second year of optometry school started. I returned to school in my Grandma’s old shirt, and my thrift store pants. I now had a pierced eyebrow and my thick black rimmed glasses. I was a hipster! And I became outspoken about social issues. The WTO, Nike. I brought my own plate to the semi-monthly pizza lunches rather than use paper plates. I wrote things on sign-up sheets that were passed around. I was really an obnoxious hipster! Still am…kinda.
I started to talk to this girl I knew just a little bit more. We were in a “club” together that met once a week so I would talk to her a little bit. Not much, just a little.
I vowed not to go on an Amigos trip this year – too expensive, and not worthwhile.
During spring break I found myself in very rural Honduras sleeping in a tent delivering poor quality eye exams and dispensing recycled spectacles. I hated the clinic part of the trip but loved experiencing life the way the vast majority of our population lives – poor. The people had no running water, no electricity. In one of the villages they had one car, that kind of worked but not really. I went on this trip not to do a vision camp but because it was advertised as going to remote, poor Honduras.
It was on this trip that I met my first OD, MPH (the trip organizer who had lived in Honduras for a few years) and we talked a lot about life, public health, the mis-direction of Amigos. I decided that I would run for Amigos president upon our return.
I was soundly defeated as my ideas were too “radical”. I had hoped to turn Amigos into not only a group that does vision camps and screenings but also one that discusses poverty, and social justice issues. Here we were with some of the best and brightest young people in America. Future leaders. And all we could do is clean and pack recycled glasses into cardboard boxes and hop on planes to throw these spectacles at people? We should be the type of people who sit down and discuss these problems and try to solve them. This should be a group where people are changed, where their outlook on the world’s poor is shaped and where they shape those around them. Instead of me they ended up with a guy who… well that is another story that – albeit more interesting – shouldn’t be told here.
Second year ended. Third year started. It was time to pick an optometry thesis topic.
I jumped at the topic that suggested we evaluate the work Amigos was doing. Jumped.
I met with the advisor. I met with the OD, MPH who led the trip to Honduras. We brainstormed. We thought. We wrote. We devised.
I grew to realize that an optometry degree, although exciting and fun to obtain, would not provide me with tools necessary to leave a lasting impact on the world. On an individual? Sure, but my public health genetics require me to think about populations NOT individuals.
The project took on a life of its own. We worked on it some more. I took out my eyebrow ring, bleached my hair and spiked it up.
I started a club that some girl joined. This club met everyday at 7am. It was often just the two of us.
I came to the conclusion that my thesis topic was too much for a lone optometry student to handle.
I did another, stupid, waste of time project.
I grew to hate optometry. I even said – out loud – that if I wasn’t so invested in this degree I wouldn’t finish it. I think a lot of that has to do with the stress of Optometry school. Like I said, it isn’t hard but it does become your life. School from 8-5 5 days a week with half a day of clinic thrown in and studying also in there somewhere. Life becomes optometry school. Optometry school is not a grand life though.
I joined a group of crazy socialists who were helping migrant farm workers. They were crazy. I helped them organize a day where students would give the workers free eye exams at the school. I stopped hanging out with them because they tried to steal my bus. Crazy, crazy socialists.
I was somehow spending a lot of time with this girl in my class. Crazy, crazy girl. We had our longest conversation yet while on the MAX (light rail transit in Portland) early in the semester. We went with a relatively large group of people to a volunteer appreciation night for a local NGO that works with Amigos. Most of the others left early so we were left to take the bus back. This girl talks fast and the train was loud. I heard maybe half of what she said but nodded along politely. Crazy, crazy girl.
I had absolutely no intention on going on another Amigos trip. I had raised a big stink about the newly adopted policy of using prison labour to clean and verify recycled eye glass prescriptions. Prison labour = big no-no in my books. The Amigos folks were certain that they were giving these people job training.
If anyone reading this is active in the optical world and has a convicted felon working for them chime in and I’ll change my opinion on the job training front. Aside from not really giving these folks job training often prisoners are forced to do these jobs against their will. The Amigos folks were (are) convinced that the menial task of cleaning and measuring glasses was giving these folks meaning in life. It was changing their outlook on the world. We were in effect saving two people. The prisoner and the villager who would see the world through new eyes. Of course there was no study to see if this was really the case.
Did I mention yet that vision camp optometrists have a distinct allergy to studying their methods and outcomes? If someone receives a pair of glasses and smiles that is proof enough that they’ve changed their life. If you ask a vision camp optometrist about what they do they will undoubtedly tell you a story about someone with very bad eyes who looked out into the world with their
Is there anything wrong with this story? No. What is wrong is that when those glasses break and THEY WILL the patient has no where to go to get new ones. That’s the consequence of thinking about the individual and not the population.
Christmas time came. Finals were over. I arranged a sit down meeting at a coffee shop with this girl in my class.
Me - “Hi girl, you ready to go to the coffee shop?”
Girl - “Sure. Let’s take my car.”
Me - “I’d rather drive myself and meet you over there.”
Girl - “That’s stupid Mr.-save-the-planet. We’ll carpool.”
Me - “I’d really rather take my car.”
Girl - “GET IN!”
Me - “O.k. I guess.”
We reach the coffee shop and order something that I would later spill all over my bus. Stupid, stupid coffee shop drink.
I’m very weird. I’m an obnoxious hipster sure but I’m ummm… kind of conservative in a lot of ways. I’m all mixed up. I’m half left-wing radical and half right-wing religious wacko. I have just enough of each in me to make me unacceptable to both groups. Such is life.
I didn’t experience much acceptance in many areas of my life. Track was actually where I was most accepted – ‘cause I was good at it I guess. I’m not complaining. I have no complaints about my social status growing up. I’m a loner and I like it.
I start to talk to this girl and basically say that I liked her. That I have no desire to casually date someone (I’ve always thought that a complete waste of time).
I was asking her to “court” me. Meaning we would date but if one of us felt like it wasn’t leading to marriage we would stop immediately and move on.
The conversation ended with me asking her to think about it over the next month (Christmas vacation) and get back to me with an answer. We got back in her car. I said: “See I should have brought my bus!”
She went home and cried. I went to my bus and spilled my dang drink. Stupid, stupid coffee shop drink.
I went to Edmonton. Died my bleached hair black… it turned blue...while I was out of town...at a friends wedding.
Christmas break ended. The girl kinda said she was interested but only because no-one else made a better offer but she was still accepting applications.
Sounds like an easy transition now, but it wasn’t.
I swore I wouldn’t go on an Amigos trip in my third year. What a waste of time. Useless, time consuming work.
One day girl asks what she should tell people about us if they ask. Courting requires a long drawn out explanation that would bore people. I told her to tell people that I thought she was swell.
Girl decides that she wants to lead an Amigos trip to Romania. First week of summer I find myself in Moldova (close to Romania – we were asked to go to Moldova instead) with this girl. Hated the clinic. Didn’t hate the time with the girl.
On our way home to Portland we talked, slept on the plane. We had a layover in Atlanta. I didn’t get on the last leg of the flight. For the next four months I would live in Chattanooga, TN where I would pay (tuition) to work very, very hard for free as part of my required optometry externships. (A very, very interesting story about how one gets from Atlanta to Chattanooga and winds up right in front of his new house without actually knowing where his new house was – but that is a different story).
Girl was back in Portland for a day before boarding a plane for Maui where she would pay (tuition) to spend time at the beach and work for free now and again as part of her required optometry externships.
We would spend the next 4 months worlds apart with a 6 hour time difference. Good times. Good times. Lots of internet chatting. Lots of mail.
End of the semester I fly to Portland, she flies to Portland. We land five minutes apart, me first – Hi girl’s parents waiting for me with flowers…for me to give to girl… – her second at the gate next to mine! Crazy, crazy adjacent gates.
Days later I ask her dad for his blessing and I propose to her. Days after that I board a plane for Atlanta, GA where I pay to work, yet, again while she pays to work in Vancouver, WA.
We spend the next four months apart. Lots of internet, lots of mail.
I had bad neighbours, a bad externship sight, no car and 9/11 to deal with. I read a lot after 9/11. A lot of the discussion at that time on more radical websites was the idea of our support of unfair economic policies driving people to do drastic things. Although an unpopular thought then and now it led me to begin to think more and more about how what choices we make have lasting actions around the world.
She had parents (its never easy moving in with your parents as an adult), a car accident, and 9/11 to deal with.
The semester ended. I flew to Portland to take Part II of optometry boards and met up with the girl again.
The last semester of our optometry education was spent together at clinics in and around Portland, OR for our required internships. We drove to each site together. We ate together. I went to her house for dinner most nights and then left to drive to the place where I slept. Crazy, crazy sleeping house. Crazy, crazy housemates.
During this time the girl’s body went crazy. She would swell randomly. Her arms would get to be 2 or 3 times their normal size. Her legs might swell or her back, her throat was swollen once or twice. Sometimes everything at once. Sick, sick girl.
We graduated and a week later were married.
Being Canadian I had to wait a few months to get my work permit. When I finally got one and started to look for work there was none to be found. I spent the next two years driving up to 2 hours each way for a day of work. I found some employment at the college of Optometry due to one of the Faculty members being ill. I would work part-time at the school until moving to Atlanta.
I wasn’t satisfied with the jobs I had. I love the idea of people but I hate the actuality of them. I was frustrated with not having a steady job. I was frustrated with my commute. I was frustrated with having to deal with stupid, stupid people. I was frustrated that I couldn’t do more with my life.
I applied to the University of Washington School of Public Health. I didn’t get in. Apparently when schools put mandatory on their applications they mean it. I didn’t have the mandatory 2 year minimum overseas experience in this case.
We had to stay in Washington due to a scholarship that the girl received to help offset optometry school expenses so the U of W was the only school I applied to.
Over the next year our job prospects didn’t improve. I found a loophole in the contract the girl signed with the state of WA. It didn’t say how many hours she had to work in WA. It just said she had to work.
We moved to Atlanta so that I could go to public health school there. Finally I was going to get an education that would enable me to help better people’s situations. The girl flew back to WA and worked once or twice that year and then her contract was up. We both worked for the same company in Atlanta. She full-time + me ¾ time while going to class full-time. We lived a nice life with wonderful cockroaches.
I loved school. It was easy. It was eye opening. It was everything I hoped it would be. Hated working as an optometrist even more because we were dealing with the laziest, most self-entitled people on the face of the planet. They were important people because they were themselves. Nobody else was important or worthwhile because nobody else was them.
There aren’t many optometrists with an MPH in Global Health. There are a few but not a lot.
I wasn’t the typical public health student. Most had undergrad degrees in things like anthropology and sociology. Others were medical students or soon to be medical students, a number of nurses. I was the only optometrist. The only person with a mid-level provider degree. I was older than many but not all of the other students. I didn’t hang out at school. If I wasn’t at school I was at work.
I wrote a lot of last minute papers. Starting them the night they before they were due. I always had the research done but didn’t start the paper until the night before. I actually turned in a paper with two conclusions…got an A. School was easy. School was interesting.
School made me consider what one could do with an OD and an MPH. Visual health care is not tremendously important for those starving, or living with war. Where clean water is not available and children are dying of diarrhea they don’t need an optometrist.
I realize also that my thoughts while in Optometry school were public health thoughts. There is no reason for great white saviours to continue to go to village after village throwing used eyeglasses at the people. There is a need for foreign people to work within government systems to develop human resources and infrastructure so that the people can care for themselves. Money and knowledge that is what we need to bring to the table. We need to do our job. We need to train people. We need to build buildings. We need to provide equipment. We need to analyze the results, ensure that the project is in running order and can hold up its own weight and then we need to leave.
Vision camp optometrists go to areas drop of a pile of landfill and then leave disappointment in their wake. When someone tries to set up a sustainable system for eye care they are often thwarted by a gung-ho, going-to-save-the-planet-one-pair-of-recycled-glasses-at-a-time vision camp team. They come in throw FREE poor quality goods at the people who then ask why someone else would be charging them (ummmm…because we need to pay our costs?) or wonder why they would go to see an eye person when all the last eye person did was shine a light in their eye and slap them on the butt on their way out the door of an assembly-line-esque vision camp.
More damage than solution when looked at from a population standpoint. But the smiles will break your heart when looked at from an individual not a population standpoint.
During my time at school in Atlanta the Boxing day Tsunami hit. Vision camp optometrists were up in arms wondering when they should go and save all those people who lost their glasses! They can’t see we must go in and give them RECYCLED GLASSES. If we don’t, who will?
An editorial was written by an American OD, MPH who was living and working full-time in Thailand. I read it. I was awed. An OD, MPH working full time treating populations not people. (I would later hear him joke about his daughter asking if he could help a blind man on the corner…his answer was something along the lines of No. “What do you do then Daddy?”) Its hard to not want to look at the individual level. The sob story. John can’t see! But John can’t see because the country in which he lives doesn’t have enough eye care practitioners because they don’t realize the importance of eye care. John is only a representation of the entire population. John shouldn’t be the concern. John and his community should be the concern. Help the community economically, help promote global justice, develop infrastructure and human resources in the community and you will help John, and Sue, and Bill, and Fred and Tim….
The editorial told the vision campers to calm down. Now was not the time. There were more important things to do. Sanitation, disease control, etc. The time would come later. And by the way when the time comes you better do more than bring your team and your recycled spectacles. Train someone, develop something.
An OD, MPH active in the world of public health, someone who thinks like me! Well, I never. Who woulda’ thunk?
Edited 05/09/07 late evening This is the final edit. Don't read. You'll be disappointed! Don't say I didn't warn you.
As part of public health school you are supposed to complete a practicum and write a Master’s thesis. The practicum can be completed at anytime during your 2 years at public health school. I was lucky enough not to need to do a practicum – I had a terminal degree and was, therefore, exempt – but intended to do one during the summer between first and second year MPH school.
I began to make arrangements to go evaluate a program that trains women to do very basic testing to determine what reading glasses the people in their community need. This program provides the women training and then sets them up in their own business to do the testing and selling of the reading glasses. It’s less an eye care program and more a social/wealth building program. I was looking forward to doing the research which would give me public health experience and data on which to write my thesis.
Life, once again, took over. Swell and I (have you figured out in this mass of reading why I call her Swell? Two reasons – I believe the first was a curse which led to the second) decided that we no longer wanted to live with the cockroaches that shared our very spendy, very shoddy rented condo so we broke our lease (and paid less penalty than I told the owner we would because she’s stupid and has no math skills) and bought a beautiful brand new condo which emptied our bank account. Swell was also hit hard with a swelling over Christmas which scared us. So due to a lack of money and health concerns I (we) decided that it really wasn’t a bright idea to travel to villages in the middle of no where central America to evaluate this program.
We ended up spending the summer working 6 days a week at the local cheap and crappy optical chain which ended up driving Swell nearly insane (but that’s her story – albeit more exciting than mine). And I began to think about what to write my thesis about.
…I forgot part of the story earlier! So I’m going to have to go back in time…
After our trip to Moldova I swore I would never go on another vision camp.
The spring just before we moved to Atlanta I found myself in Romania, with Swell and a group of French-Canadian optometry students doing, of course… an optometry vision camp.
We thought joining this group would be a good – and tax deductible – excuse to go to Romania and visit Swell’s family there. We did the vision camp for a week and visited family for a week or so.
Swell wasn’t entirely convinced of my views about vision camps and optometry public health. She had been going on vision camps since she was in undergrad. She went to Romania twice during undergrad to act as a translator for the Amigos group. They worked in orphanages so her experience was different from mine. She then organized a trip to Romania while a second year optometry student and then the Moldova trip as well. She was a member of the board of directors of Amigos (but I digress – this is my story, she can tell hers if she wants to…but she won’t).
We ended up in Romania in May. The trip was worse than any of the other three I had been on. Swell cried about it daily. The patients were not treated as people. They were crowded into a building with no water or food. They were promised the world and delivered garbage.
Imagine if you will that you are a poor person but your neighbours are wealthy. You go to a foreign optometrist (most likely a student in this case) giving care in the context of a vision camp. After waiting in the blistering sun or the pouring rain for hours, you are given an abrupt exam in which you understand nothing. You are then told that you need glasses. You are excited. Your vision was blurry and now you hope to be able to see perfectly again. You wait in yet another line this time in a scorching hot building crowded against your peers.
You can ignore the heat, the crowds, and the long wait. You can even forgive the members of this team from branding you with a permanent marker number on the back of your hand, but in exchange you want something.
Your turn at the head of the line comes. Just as you expect to receive your something the entire group – all 25 of them – leave to go and get lunch for an hour, leaving you to wait. And wait. And wait.
They return and hand you over-sized glasses. Ugly glasses. Glasses that help you see a little bit better but not perfect. You go home and see your neighbours with their stylish glasses. They ask you about what your eye doctor told you about your condition. You have to admit that they told you nothing.
This was our trip to Romania with the French students. Swell was disgusted by the way they treated her people. How dare we all take a break at the same time? Half of us could keep seeing patients while the rest ate, couldn’t we?
NO, was the group’s answer.
After that trip Swell also vowed to never return to a vision camp.
Here ends our flashback.
From my experiences with vision camps, my attempted optometry school thesis and the knowledge I was getting in public health school I decided to evaluate volunteer based groups that did vision camp work.
I sent out surveys to as many groups like this as I could find. Very few returned them. This was not a surprise. They are very a-feared of being evaluated.
In order to maintain our optometric licenses in Washington state Swell and I had to go to Seattle for a conference that would teach us how to do things we’ll never do. It cost a fortune and took four days out of our lives.
At this same conference was the OD, MPH who went to Honduras with me. She has since relocated to Florida so it was quite a surprise to see her.
She mentioned that there was an Optometry school in Palestine that was very short on faculty. Desperately short. In need of any help they could get. Swell ‘bout fell out of her chair. “No way, no how! I am not going there to do that” We headed back to Atlanta.
I wrote my thesis, not a lot of fun. I emailed the optometry school in Palestine.
I sent a copy of my thesis to the few groups that filled out the survey.
I graduated with my MPH.
The dean of the optometry school in Palestine emailed me back and said; “How soon can you get here?”
Swell cried, weeped and wailed about going. She was interested but was very, very scared. Her fear kept her up at night. She couldn’t imagine doing something as scary as moving to a foreign country and…teaching.
That’s right her predominant fear of going to Palestine was having to stand up in front of a group of people and teach.
I convinced her that it wouldn’t be that bad. That she was smart enough to teach. She just needed to stay one step ahead of the students. She was convinced. We told the dean we would be there in January.
Due to the strong support of family and friends Swell started to have serious doubts. Her friends, family and coworkers convinced her that she would surely die in this land of heathens - in case you're wondering she does, in fact, survive.
Out of the blue I receive an email from the OD, MPH who lives and works in Thailand.
It seems through the magic of the internet that he learned of my thesis. Forwarded from person to person until he learned of it.
He asked for a copy. I sent it.
He didn’t say it was terrible – it was.
He invited me to a meeting of a large group of vision-campers.
The guy from Thailand and my thesis adviser encouraged me to condense my thesis into something that could be published in an academic journal.
We went to the vision-camp meeting. It was in Florida.
We met the Thai-guy and the OD, MPH who went to Honduras with me (and who has since relocated to Florida). The two of them said a lot to the folks at the meeting. The Thai-guy has been opposed to vision-camps for some time. My professor from Oregon has changed her views on vision-camps and is now opposed to them.
I liked what they had to say. The others did not. I may have gotten a little too much gumption from their words. I decided if they could do it so could I. I spoke.
Perhaps here is a good place to tell/remind you that I have never really developed political savvy. Let’s just say that throughout my life I’ve had a knack for saying too much especially when people aren’t ready to hear it.
I probably said too much at this meeting. The two other OD, MPH’s and Swell were so excited that I said too much, commenting that its about time someone said it. Here I was thinking that I just echoed what they had said. I guess because I spoke bluntly and they spoke politically correct we were actually saying different things? Don’t quite understand that but I’m not looking to make friends in these groups so it was a good time.
At this meeting we met the president of the organization. She is a very nice woman. Was kind and accepting of what everyone had to say despite the membership not appreciating our (my?) words of wisdom.
I was again encouraged to work on getting my thesis into a publishable paper.
The meeting ended. We went home and started preparing to leave our home in Atlanta for a new, temporary home in Palestine.
I learned of an optometry related public health conference in South Africa. I submitted an abstract of my still-soon-coming condensed thesis in the hope that I would be able to present it at this meeting.
Going to Palestine would give us the opportunity to do something that would have the potential to leave a lasting impact on people. Rather than going to provide temporary service we would create a permanent solution. We would put public health ideas into action. Creating human resources in an area of the world seriously lacking them. Long after we left there would be optometrists that we helped “create” providing care for the Palestinian people.
Time flew. Soon we were on a plane to Israel. My second trip, Swell’s first.
We got to Nablus – via a sort side trip to Egypt – and began our work.
Over our time here we have learned that the Dean – the only optometry faculty in the school – is a wife. A mother. A full-time law school student. A member of numerous faculty councils. And on the boards of numerous public health related organizations.
She has been too busy to properly develop the Faculty. The students are lacking. Equipment is lacking. Funds are lacking. Educators are lacking.
Swell and I taught. We froze. We laughed, we cried.
My abstract was accepted for the conference in South Africa. We went. We ran into Thai-guy and the OD, MPH who I went to Honduras with (who has since relocated to Florida). I spoke. I was not as politically correct as I should have been. I got a rise out of people. Some happy, other’s not so much. I tore into vision camp groups.
My short talk was immediately followed by a short talk by the president of the vision camp group whose meeting we went to in Florida last summer.
We hung out with Thai-guy and the OD, MPH who I went to Honduras with (who has since relocated to Florida) and others. We shot the breeze. Encouraged each other to pursue change and to write our experiences in important publications. The president of the vision camp group also hung out with us. She was still kind despite her group being attacked subtly by others and not so subtly by me.
We returned to Palestine. We taught some more. I finally got around to finishing condensing my thesis into a paper. I submitted it to a major US optometry journal.
Although we’ve struggled a lot in Palestine we’re not entirely opposed to being here. We think we could help change the students. To encourage them. To teach them. To help increase the acceptance of optometry in the country. Our main problem is not being paid enough.
None of the administration seem to understand the amount of education we have. They seem to not be able to understand that it has cost us a substantial amount of money to be here. Over the last 5 weeks or so we’ve come to realize that if we don’t return the faculty of optometry will likely be closed.
The two do-nothing TAs are going to quit. They are very unhappy in their job here. They want to learn but they can’t teach because they are not confident in their skills. Truth be told I think they just want to get married and be Mum’s and wives. Nothing wrong with that at all.
The dean will graduate with her law degree this summer. In order to be licensed she needs to work for a year as a lawyer. She must begin that year by November at the latest.
About a month ago I got yet another email from Thai-guy. He had been kicking around an idea for a paper for some time. He had an abstract that he presented at a conference a number of years ago. He wrote me and four others (including the OD, MPH who went to Hounduras with me, who has since relocated to Florida) and said we should write the paper in collaboration.
I wrote some – it was easy he was really just writing the concluding chapter of my thesis. Others wrote some. We edited. We toiled. We finished it. They decided on the order of the authors (A decision that can help one's CV/resume or have no impact at all). Thai-guy was, of course, first. They put me second.
It will very likely be published.
Thai-guy let it slip in one of his emails during our correspondence on this paper that he received a paper from a major US optometry journal to review. He said it sounded a lot like a thesis he read a year ago and much like a presentation he heard in South Africa.
He said he would ok it for publication with some minor (?) revisions.
We can’t come back to Palestine without a substantial raise. The begging started today.
Vice-president“What would you need?”
Me”I’m embarrassed to say it but at least double.”
Vice-president”No can do.”
Me”No problem for me.”
I really don’t see us coming back. I have around $120,000 in student loan debt. I can’t work on a developing country salary with developed country debt. It’s impossible.
What are we going to do?
OD, MPH who went to Honduras with me (and who has since relocated to Florida) mentioned in passing that she was interviewing back at Pacific University for the staff public health person job there. She was surprised to learn I didn’t apply.
I knew it was available but didn’t apply. She isn’t even sure if she would take it if it were offered. Is that a possibility? Does that offer change in the world? Is it a stepping stone to more? Do we really want to go back to Portland?
My public health career is non-existent. It’s progressing but not really there. I wrote a survey for the students here and hope to write a paper or two with the results.
Neither Swell nor I really want to go back to Atlanta to work as optometrists. There is a lot of money to be made so we’ll suck it up and do it but it isn’t our preference.
Swell and I will have been married 5 years on May 25.
I’ll be 31 in August.
So the point…
Well the point is I’m very lucky/blessed/whatever you call it.
I have the world’s greatest wife. The world’s greatest families (even though my family refuses to talk to me). I have been able to do a lot of things in my life. I’ve seen more of the world than most people. I’ve had the opportunity to get a great education.
But even at 31 I’m lost. I suppose that this is a new problem for Western people. We aren’t guaranteed a satisfying job that will last 30 years. We change jobs. We change cities. We change.
And with that change come a whole new set of questions. What is my place in this world? How can I leave a mark on this world? Am I making the right changes?
The point is also that my – that our – being here started in the guidance counselor’s office when he mentioned that optometry is a great job (it’s not).
Or did it begin when I was in grade 1 and I beat the kid in our class nicknamed the roadrunner in the long distance run portion of the awful and – thankfully for current young Canadians – disbanded Canada fitness test? I was after all crossing the street in front of school to go to the bank to get money to buy the school newspaper that had an article about my illustrious grade 12 cross country season.
These are questions that I hope I’ll never stop asking. I must always ask what am I doing and what is it accomplishing? I must change my path if I’m not accomplishing worthwhile things.
The point is that although it will appear that we failed here – the students don’t know all that we wanted them to learn, the school is risking closure – that we didn’t fail.
We grew closer to each other. We learned about a group of people who are suffering. We showed that we care. We sacrificed. We suffered but we are willing to come back.
Where will we be next September? I’ll tell you when we know.
Much love,
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