A free seminar on Blade-Free Lasik will be held Monday, May 21 between 6:00 – 7:00 pm at Florida Eye Associates located at 502 E. New Haven Ave. in Downtown Melbourne.

We invite all to attend. Please RSVP to 726-4115.

Florida Eye Associates is joining the Better Hearing Institute (BHI) in urging America’s dads, granddads—and all men in the Space Coast community—to take the online hearing check, Across America Hearing Check Challenge, during National Men’s Health Week, which starts June 11 and runs through Father’s Day, June 17. By visiting www.hearingcheck.org, anyone can quickly assess if they may have a hearing loss and need a more comprehensive hearing evaluation by a hearing professional. Florida Eye Associates efforts are focused on underscoring the importance of men’s hearing health to their whole health and on raising awareness of the link between hearing loss and several chronic diseases.

Once again, the Better Hearing Institute (BHI) is joining with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office on Women’s Health (OWH) in promoting National Women’s Health Week. And we’re encouraging hearing health professionals across the country to join in as well.

Hearing health is integrally important to a woman’s overall health. Research shows that people with certain chronic diseases—such as heart disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and Alzheimer’s disease; as well as depression and emotional health, memory loss and cognitive decline—may all have an increased risk of hearing loss. More than 10 million women in America suffer from unaddressed hearing loss.

National Women’s Health Week is a weeklong health observance coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health. It brings together communities, businesses, government, health organizations, and other groups in an effort to promote women’s health. The theme for 2012 is “It’s Your Time.” National Women’s Health Week empowers women to make their health a top priority.

The 13th annual National Women’s Health Week kicks off on Mother’s Day, May 13, 2012 and is celebrated until May 19, 2012. National Women’s Checkup Day is Monday, May 14, 2012.

BHI will be working to raise awareness of the importance of hearing health to women’s overall health during National Women’s Health Week. And we are urging women nationwide to take the Across America Hearing Check Challenge.

There are several ways you can participate in National Women’s Health Week.  Here are just some ideas:

• Organize a hearing screening in your community.
• Host a health fair.
• Disseminate women’s health information
• Issue a local press release.
• Send information through listservs.
• Hang posters in prominent locations such as your office, library, local mall, or church.
• Include the National Women’s Health Week Web banner on your web site.
• Encourage women in your community to take the BHI online hearing check at www.hearingcheck.org

To download materials for National Women’s Health Week, visit their website: http://www.womenshealth.gov/whw/activity-planning/.

A 2006 visit with a former friend from New York City helped steer Monique Badillo toward life on the Space Coast working as as a certified ophthalmic technician (COT).

Amazingly, living near her friend in Palm Bay was Yvonne Santiago, clinic manager for Florida Eye Associates, whom had trained Badillo to be a COT in New York.

“It turned out she had lived like a block from my friend for the past four years,” Badillo said. “I called (Santiago) because I knew she lived in Florida. I gave her the address and she said, “Oh, my gosh, you are like a block away,” and while I was on the phone with her, she knocked on the door. The whole scenario was weird. Everything just happened and now I’m living here with my family.’”

Badillo talked about her career and how modern medicine can make a huge difference in improving and maintaining sight.

To view the Q & A, click here >

Dr. L. Neal Freeman, chief of ophthalmology at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, board-certified surgeon with Florida EyeAssociates and volunteer ophthalmologist with the humanitarian organization Surgical Eye Expeditions International, took his 14-year-old son, Lev, with him on a surgical trip to El Progreso, Honduras,in March.

During the past 22 years, Freeman has completed 15 humanitarian trips tovarious countries to assist patients whodesperately need eye surgery, but cannot afford it or don’t have access to it. He has helped patients in Bulgaria, Mexico, and in South and Central America.

“I’ve been doing this for a number of years and it always occurred to me (that) to see the reality in these underdevelopednations would be quite enlightening for an American youngster who has not been exposed to this type ofthing in their life,” Freeman said. “It’s an outstanding opportunity for our youth to gain exposure to how this area of theworld is living.”

Lev, the oldest of Freeman’s three children, is an eighth-grader at WestShore Jr/Sr High in Melbourne. While spending his spring break in Honduras with his father, he helped fill out patient charts, looked up words his father needed translated and observed surgeries.

“I really liked it,” Lev said of the six-day mission. “It was something that I felt was very special. Not many kids get that opportunity in their life, and I just enjoyed watching my dad work. It was a great experience.”

Lev described the remote areas anddifficult clinic conditions they worked in, saying it taught him to not take anything for granted.

“I just realize it’s good to live in America where there’s numerous doctors and it’s a clean environment. In the future, if I get another opportunity, I’d like to go.”

His father was pleased with how Lev handled the experience.

“I was very impressed with my son and how he tolerated the physical situations well,”

Freeman said. “He dealt witha lot of the compromises we faced interms of personal hygiene, the change in food and the long days of work. I think he’s a far more knowledgeable and worldy person now for the experience.” Freeman has been a member of Surgica lEye Expeditions Internationalsince the late 1980s. He says his goals in completing these trips is to do as much good as he can, to be a goodwill ambassadorfor the United States, to educate the local foreign physicians in various medical techniques and regimens they may be unfamiliar with and to provide them with medical supplies when possible.

“I look forward to the opportunity to continue this type of work and hope we can bring as much good to people less fortunate throughout the world,” he said.

View the original article here