eligible individuals and families who do not have health insurance or state as- sistance. The volunteer doctors, nurses, medical social workers and office staff offer a free surgical clinic once a month at the Lexington Surgery Center, an af- filiate of Surgical Care Affiliates (SCA). “Surgery on Sunday uses our facil- ity the third Sunday of the month,” says Joyce Dicken, administrator of Lexing- ton Surgery Center. “We have been the site for Surgery on Sunday since its in- ception. Surgeons and nurses from all over Kentucky, probably six each of sur- geons and anesthesiologists and at least 40 volunteer nurses and clerical staff, come together to do about 20 surgeries a month. They do gall bladder removals, arthroscopies, cancer reconstruction, colonoscopy screening and cataract surgery. All of the volunteers have to be credentialed. I help with this process and other behind-the-scenes support to ensure everything is in order.” The patients have to be referred through an outreach program, such as the Salvation Army, Nathaniel United Methodist Mission in Lexington or The Hope Center, also in Lexington, Dicken says. “The requirements are that they have to be uninsured and fall 200 per- cent or below the poverty level,” Ebert says. “Most of these people are lower middle class, lower income. My office handles the screening procedure.” The screening itself is a full-time job because the office sees 15–20 new refer- rals every week and all have to be pro- cessed, Ebert says. “We have multiple free clinics across the state and we hook them up with a sliding-scale clinic be- fore the surgery,” she says. “Our volun- teer surgeons accept these patients and they accept them for life, uninsured or insured. We have repeat patients more than once every year, and they are all so grateful. We keep so many of them off disability by doing this one surgery.” SCA has said that it would like to see
this program in all of its surgery cen- ters across the country, Ebert says. The
are a United Way partner, and the Ro- tary Club of Washington does a huge fundraiser for us. The Good Samaritan Foundation also gives us a grant. We do not accept state or federal funding be- cause it’d take away the autonomy of the program.”
This is a first of its kind program in
the country, Ebert says. “On January 20, 2013, Omaha, Nebraska, started its Surgery on Sunday using our template.” “The Lexington Surgery Center has
Howard Goldman, MD, of the Eye Associates of Boca Raton, presents patient donations to Caridad Clinic.
We are totally indebted and grateful to the
[Lexington] Surgery Center. They make our world possible.”
—Laura Ebert Surgery on Sunday
company has about 150 ASCs “and they have been very encouraging. I volun- teered since the beginning and took the directorship in January 2009. We have served more than 5,100 patients as of to- day [February 27, 2013]. We have 530 on the waiting list. We have 2.5 employees, the rest are all volunteers. We have more than 400 volunteers. On a surgery day, we have 60–70 volunteers on average.” Surgery on Sunday is trying to ex- tend its program on to all the local hospitals, Ebert says. “Currently, Saint Joseph Hospital in Lexington is serving the patients once per quarter. The Uni- versity of Kentucky Hospital—Lexing- ton, Kentucky, is in line, too.” Surgery on Sunday operates on an annual budget of $200,000 a year, Ebert says. “Lately we’ve been aver- aging 1,000 patients a year, meaning only $200 applies to each patient. We
supported us through our lowest times, making sure we have supplies,” Ebert says. “The OR manager at the surgery center and the environmental special- ist have been at every Surgery on Sun- day. One of them is the first to enter the building on those Sundays and the last one to leave. They don’t have to be there! They always sponsor us. Joyce has come many times, any time I need her. They are a truly admirable com- munity partner. We are totally indebted and grateful to the surgery center. They make our world possible.”
Garden City SurgiCenter, Garden City, New York In 2012, the Garden City SurgiCen- ter sent its medical director, Michael Sable, MD, and surgical technician, Lo- rena Chinchilla, to Peru to perform eye surgery. The mission, called A Promise to Peru,
www.apromisetoperu.com, pro- vides an annual cataract surgical and general medical mission to the remote villages of the Sacred Valley of Peru. Physicians and other health profession- als from across the US volunteer their time and services at A Promise to Peru, a mission that includes a mentoring pro- gram for the students from the School of Medicine at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York. “After having the opportunity to di-
rectly observe the tremendous amount of advanced cataracts among the people living in remote villages high in the Andes Mountains, I decided to initiate a surgical expedition there for the first
ASC FOCUS JULY 2013 11
PHOTO COURTESY OF EYE ASSOCIATES OF BOCA RATON
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