His priority: mission work
      A teacher in the Physician Assistant Program at the University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences, he has “always been interested in mission work, not just the physical, but the mind and the spirit,” says Powdrill.

UND offers ‘a perfect program because we learned as much from each other as we learned from our instructors.’

      The son of an Englishman and mother from California, he grew up in India, attended Bible school and received a bachelor’s degree in nursing at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, IN, and earned a Master of Philosophy, a research degree in community eye health education, from the Institute of Ophthalmology in London where the eye surgeons taught him cataract and glaucoma procedures. He and his wife have worked in India, the Honduras and Sierra Leone. 

     His work in Kenya began when he was attached to Christian Blind Mission International (CBMI), an organization based in Germany which funds eye hospitals and clinics in 18 countries.
     “Their big focus is on blind and deaf rehabilitation,” says Powdrill, who was sent by CBMI to Tenwek Hospital. In the 17 years since he started, his work there has led to the building of a 20-bed unit dedicated to eye care, with its own operating theater, and a team of 12 patient attendants, nurses and ophthalmic assistants, whom he trained. 
       While he knows some Swahili, he relies on translators to help him communicate in a country with 25 language groups.  

Building for sustainability     

“I wanted to make (the clinic)

Caring for Kenyans who need eye surgery is “incredibly gratifying” says Powdrill (pictured escorting his patients).

something that would keep going,” he says. And it has. Mid-level practitioners do eye surgery and his practice has expanded to facial plastic surgery, “because there was no one to do that there.”
      The clinic is staffed with a U.S. retinal fellowship-trained ophthalmologist who first visited the hospital years ago as a medical student, returned as a resident-in-training and now practices ophthalmic surgery there. It has a mobile eye unit and a bus to transport patients, he says. “When I’m not there, the work is carrying on. It’s very fascinating.” 
 Powdrill has done 350 corneal repairs, due to injuries. He set up local eye drop production and an optical workshop, “making simple glasses.” During his three-week visit last spring, he saw many patients and conducted 85 surgeries. Most of these patients were blind before the operation.
      The most fulfilling aspect of his work is when he removes bandages from a patient who, “the day before, hadn’t seen his hand in front of his face for 20 years,” can see, he says. Or, the woman who walked six days through the bush to receive treatment and, after surgery, “literally, the next day she was dancing… I find that incredibly gratifying.”
      “Not that many things in medicine have that quick a transformation,” he says. “It’s hugely rewarding.”