Daniel Maroko Mochere, OD

Dr. Mochere with members of the Low Vision and Specialty Contact Lens team
Left to right: Paul Grenier, OD; Sherry Day, OD, Dr. Mochere; Donna Wicker, OD; and Samantha Gagnon, OD

Daniel Maroko Mochere came to Kellogg Eye Center from May 1 through June 14, 2019 to take the Low Vision and Specialty Contact Lens courses.  He was sponsored by the World Council of Optometry and the Kellogg Eye Center for International Ophthalmology.   He is a practicing optometrist in Kisii Eye Hospital which is a private eye hospital offering eye care in the South Western region of Kenya. It serves four counties with approximately 5.4 million people. Despite the fact that the region has public hospitals with eye units, such units are not able to offer comprehensive eye exams due to lack of equipment and trained personnel. This training opportunity arose when Dr. Sherry Day from University of Michigan visited the facility while in Kenya and told them of the training available at Kellogg.

Currently, an estimated 250,000 people in Kenya are blind while another 850,000 are visually impaired. There are only 130 trained ophthalmologists to serve a population of more than 48 million.

Over the course of seven weeks at KEC, Dr. Mochere was able to learn about the various contact lens prescription, low vision testing and the various devices used.  He also learned about management of patient of records and referral systems, as well as patient privacy and ethical practices of a health system in the US.

Kisii Eye Hospital will now have a trained low vision rehabilitation and contact lens fitting specialist with plans to establish a Low Vision Unit at Kisii.  Dr. Day plans to go back to Kisii in about six months for follow-up and evaluation.