Local eye doctors receive training from Orbis Volunteer Faculty during a Flying Eye Hospital program in Mongolia

Medical volunteer opportunities

Orbis’s comprehensive global network of volunteer medical professionals provide ophthalmic education and instruction to eye care teams in low-resourced countries around the globe to increase their skills, improve service delivery and the quality of patient care.

Who Are Our Medical Volunteers?

For nearly 40 years, the keystone of our work has been to teach and train eye health professionals to prevent and treat avoidable blindness.

Our global cadre of volunteer medical professionals is made up of a diverse pool of experts covering every subspecialty of ophthalmology – including nursing, anaesthetics, biomedical engineering and ophthalmic technicians – from over 30 countries around the globe.

Unfortunately, we do not have volunteer engagement opportunities for medical students at this time.

Expert medical volunteers

Our world renowned volunteers are the heartbeat of our training programs, both on the Flying Eye Hospital and in partner hospitals around the world. For nearly 40 years the keystone of our work has been to teach and train eye teams to fight blindness on their own - we couldn't do it without their hard work and dedication.

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What Do Our Medical Volunteers Do?

Our volunteers provide specialized instruction and skills-transfer both online and in-person.

Flying Eye Hopspital

Each year our Flying Eye Hospital team completes 6-8 missions around the world, lasting 2-4 weeks in duration. Our Volunteer Faculty join for a week at a time, sharing their knowledge, skills and clinical expertise with the next generation of eye care professionals.

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Hospital Based trainings

Up to 80 training programs take place at our local partner hospitals around the world, tailored to local needs. Typically lasting for a week, these programs are critical for building capacity and often follow on from Flying Eye Hospital programmes.

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Cybersight

Cybersight is our award-winning telemedicine platform, providing free educational resources to eye health teams all over the world. Our medical volunteers often deliver virtual training programs and mentoring via Cybersight.

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All volunteers are matched in accordance with requested subspecialty skill areas. When asked to volunteer aboard the Flying Eye Hospital or abroad at a local partner institution, typical activities will include diagnostic patient consultation and/or instruction, simulated or surgical demonstration, as well as delivery of educational content in large or small group settings.

All in-person training programs are designed with specific objectives to achieve desired competency outcomes for our projects and partnerships.

We seek individuals who thrive in a team environment and can share their skills and talents with comfort and confidence. Travel distance, language skills, and cultural familiarity are also taken into consideration when matching volunteers with deployment opportunities.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Given the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital is the world's only fully accredited ophthalmic teaching hospital on board an MD-10 aircraft, we require all prospective and current Volunteer Faculty to meet and maintain our strict credentialing criteria to be granted clinical privileges.

Volunteer nurse Angeline Chaipa with a Vietnamese patient

Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not actively deploying Volunteer Faculty at the moment.

In the interim, we invite you to complete our short registration form.

Once we are able to safely resume clinical training aboard the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital and with partner institutions across the world, we will contact you to complete our volunteer faculty credentialing process.

INTERESTED IN JOINING OUR VOLUNTEER FACULTY?

Apply!