VOSH/volunteering abroad

[hellohelloduh]

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I've seen some posts about VOSH and was just wondering if anyone had any experience with it. I've always wanted to volunteer abroad but I've never really gotten the chance, and this seems like the perfect opportunity!

Thanks.

 

[SokClari]

While I was living in Paraguay a couple years ago we had some volunteers come down. There were about 20 of them, mostly optometry students, some optometrists and some opticians. They were there for about one week and basically worked everyday all day in kind of an assembly line. I believe some Paraguayan nursing students would check the visual acuity, then it was on to the autorefractor, pressures, etc. etc. They had a group of us out there to translate and they just took one patient after another. I'm sure they saw well over a thousand people as it was in a big gymnasium-type place and there was a huge line, nonstop. I'm not sure if it was VOSH, but from my understanding it was coordinated with the Lion's Club of that area. I can't really answer from any insider perspective, but that was my experience with the volunteers. Hope that helps.

 

[JMU07]

It probably was SVOSH (the student chapter at the schools). I'm not sure how to join VOSH if you're not an optometrist, though. Most, if not all of the schools do have a student chapter though! It's a great opportunity to go abroad and help those in need.

 

[hellohelloduh]

Ahh, UCLA doesn't have SVOSH 🙁 I'd start one but I don't know if I have enough time/I don't know if it would gain enough interest as we already have 2 pre-optometry clubs.

I also noticed that some people took part in ISL, which is more general volunteering in the medical field abroad but does have some opportunities in the optometry dept. Does anyone have any information about this? Do you think it would be a great help on an application or not? I'm not sure if I'd do it otherwise because it's really expensive but it seems enjoyable.

 

[xmattODx]

Recommended reading: http://vosh.org/documents/Document9.pdf

 

[JMU07]

Ahh, UCLA doesn't have SVOSH 🙁 I'd start one but I don't know if I have enough time/I don't know if it would gain enough interest as we already have 2 pre-optometry clubs.

I also noticed that some people took part in ISL, which is more general volunteering in the medical field abroad but does have some opportunities in the optometry dept. Does anyone have any information about this? Do you think it would be a great help on an application or not? I'm not sure if I'd do it otherwise because it's really expensive but it seems enjoyable.

Sorry, I meant optometry schools, not undergrad. Undergrads wouldn't have it.