Medical Mission to Thailand 2012

Rotary Foundation Global Mission Trips
 
May 9-19, 2012.  Elizabethtown Rotarians Ken Wolfe, David Ritter, and Dr. Joseph Rebman joined Rotarians from the USA, Denmark, Japan, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Thailand for an eye, dental and pediatric medical mission in areas of Thailand devastated by flooding in 2011-2012. We worked in the flooded cities in the Lopburi provence and the northeast city of Nakhorn Phanom. This is a Rotary Foundation grant project.
 
  
Visit the blog @ http://etownrotarythailand.blogspot.com/ for commentary from about the missions.   Interesting entries from the blog...
 
"I had some new career experiences today... Doing eye exams without shoes on (I was in socks but some of the other eye docs were in barefeet).  This was because of the Thai tradition of not wearing shoes in a building.  All of our patients were shoeless also.  I did an eye exam on a Buddhist monk in his traditional robes (and barefeet)."
 
 
Unlike previous missions, we started this one with a day of relaxation and sightseeing . This was partly due to the long trip to get here but mainly to wait for the Rotary International Convention to conclude. Those of us not attending the convention were able to see the top Bangkok attractions. We started with the Shrine of the Golden Buddha.
 
 
We ended the evening with dinner at Hard Rock Bangkok. After dinner we realized that we had not made arrangements for the hotel van to pick us up for the return trip, so we hired tuk-tuks. A tuk-tuk is a three-wheeled open air "taxi" (think golf cart on steroids). The trip weaving in and out of Bangkok traffic in this cart was exhilarating ! And the answer is ... 4 Rotarians can be wedged into a tuk-tuk.
 
 
Over the entire mission, we provided prescription glasses or reading glasses to around 1500 people.  The interesting thing about this mission is that there were very few people who passed the screening. (Less than 10?).
    
 
 
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