From the 13th to the 17th of January of 2014, the
Center Ann Sullivan Panamá (CASPAN), organized the First Vision Clinic with Dr.
Linda Lawrence, renowned ophthalmologist, with more than 28 yrs of professional
international experience. Doctor Lawrence works in several countries around the
world in the Evaluation and Ophthalmological Treatment of people with different
abilities, who are verbal and non-verbal; counting for this matter with the
support of the CASP Volunteer Coordinator, Mrs. Chantal Fort d’Auriol.
This Clinic had three ideal components:
1) The Visual Evaluation of the students
with different abilities at CASPAN, with the
treatment and follow-up recommendations directed to their families and
Specialists from CASPAN.
2) The
Demostration and Training of the Visual Acuity Evaluation to the CASPAN
Specialists.
3) The Training of two local panamenian
ophthalmologists, Dr. Maritza López, and Dr. Giorgía Alverola, who will be
in charge of the follow-up and control checkups of the CASPAN students.
The First Lady’s office organized a dinner at the Presidency’s “La Casa Amarilla”, celebrating Dr. Lawrence’s
visit to Panamá, who offered the Conference: “How does Vision affect Development, and Development affects the use of
vision” in people with different abilities, for the important health
professionals, political authorities and government guests gathered there.
This event was highlighted with the important presence of Panamá’s First
Lady, Mrs. Marta Linares de Martinelli, who thanked the international expert
for the benefits her one week visit gave towards the attention as a whole of
the population with autism spectrum condition and severe intellectual
disability.
Dr. Lawrence has been internationally recognized and has won several
awards for her humanitarian work on behalf of the people with different abilities
around the world. She uses a very simple language, different methods and
special tests, so as to identify when a person with these conditions has also
visual difficulties, looking to maximize their vision, and later keep on doing follow
up checkups with local ophthalmologists, thus bettering their overall learning
this way. She emphasizes the importance of a (good and healthy) visual capacity
for a child to learn adequately. Her research studies have demonstrated that 50
to 75% of this population has visual problems, or low visual impairment.
In the year 2005, this Vision
Clinic was organized for the first time at the Centro Ann Sullivan del Perú,
CASP, thanks to the enthusiastic and determined drive of our general director
and founder, Liliana Mayo Ortega, PhD, as well as Dr. Linda Marie Lawrence’s
desire and commitment to make a difference in the lives of people with
different abilities. From then on people of this risk population have been seen
at CASP and other institutions as well.
These vision clinics have also taken place in the peruvian cities of
Piura, Sullana, Chiclayo, Trujillo, Huaráz, Caráz, Arequipa, Tacna, Cusco and
Madre de Dios thanks to Dr. Lawrence, and her CASP teamwork.
Dr. Linda Marie Lawrence has her private practice at Salina, Kansas, is a graduated ophthalmologist of the
University of Texas A&M, and the Texas University at Galveston (USA). She’s
also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology of the University of
Kansas in the city of Lawrence (Ks), and university Professor of the
Ophthalmological Department at the Medical Center of KU, the University of
Kansas, as well as a CASP and Orbis International Consultant, among other
recognitions and posts.