Sam Powdrill, PA ’99 (right), and his assistant prepare a patient for surgery at the eye clinic he started at Tenwek Hospital in southwest Kenya.

When he opened the eye clinic in southwest Kenya in April 1991, Sam Powdrill, PA ’99, had two empty rooms and his was the only clinic serving an area populated with one million people, he says. “No one was doing eye care in that area at that time.”  
      From 1991 to 2004, he operated the clinic at Tenwek Hospital in a rural area about 30 miles north of Masaai Mara. Since 2004, when he and his wife, Rachel, returned to the United States, he has returned annually to Kenya, loaded down with supplies, to provide care at the clinic and elsewhere.

PA grad finds satisfying work providing eye care to Kenyans

      “I’ve operated on a church bench, in the back of my car, but mostly in clinics or hospitals,” he says. “We’ve set up in schools, churches, and out in the bush” where members of five tribes seek his help. He travels by truck and trailer or helicopter to remote sites.
      “My infection rate is about the same as in the United States – that’s pretty amazing,” says Powdrill who treats patients in need of cataract, glaucoma and corneal repair surgery.   
      “In the last couple of years that we were there, we were doing about 1100 major eye cases a year, mostly cataracts,” he notes.  “A lot of our patients are very low-income” but, depending on their ability to pay, some are charged for services at various levels “so there’s a sense of ownership.”  The Kenyan staff is partially supported by patient funds.