For ophthalmologist JillAnne McCarty, volunteering in Guatemala is an important part of her professional life.

"Being able to help in this way is a very special experience," said McCarty of Camarillo, who has practiced in Ventura since 1992.

"It actually gives us Americans a completely different perspective on what is really important in life," she said. "The patients (in Guatemala) don't ask a lot of questions; they are so grateful for whatever we can do for them."

Raised in Santa Barbara, McCarty has made a number of trips to Guatemala with a team of physicians to perform eye surgeries and other care for the needy. She made her first trip in 1999, when a friend from her days at Stanford University invited her to be part of a volunteer team of five eye surgeons and 10 nurses.

Ever since, "our team goes to Guatemala approximately every 18 months and spends a week doing surgery 12 hours a day," said McCarty, explaining that the team works simultaneously in an eye operating room with four tables and uses a clinic next door for eye exams and distribution of glasses.

"We are able to do about 150 surgeries, and treat several hundred patients on each trip," she continued. "There are different teams of American volunteer surgeons of various specialties going to the hospital every three months.

"Cataracts are a huge problem in the area, so several teams of exclusively eye surgeons make the trip regularly."

Former patients include an 18-year-old woman who could see her infant for the first time after surgery. McCarty also restored vision to a 5-year-old boy with the use of a donated laser, which treated his secondary cataract.

"The emotional rewards for our efforts in Guatemala are far greater than anything else I do," McCarty said.

It takes a village

McCarty has high praise for her extensive support network, which she acknowledges is the collective reason she can do what she does.

"I leave my husband and four boys here at home, as well as taking time off from my patients in my solo practice," she said. "My husband holds down the fort,' the boys pitch in to keep our household running, as does my staff at my office, while I am gone, so they all actually participate in making my efforts in Guatemala possible."

McCarty wants to spread the word not so much of her deeds as the possibility of such deeds. She hopes that shedding light on her situation "might inspire other people who also have busy lives, to realize that they too could participate in a service project like this."

"I think we all are consumed by our busy lives and obligations here in the U.S., but it is important to take time out to help others," she said. "Performing community service not only makes a huge difference to those we help but allows us to gain perspective in our own lives."

About the work

But make no mistake. The work helps others — profoundly.

The people who live in the rural area of Guatemala where McCarty and her colleagues volunteer are extremely poor, so the chance to have their cataracts removed and their sight restored is a tremendous boon in their lives, said Don Greenberg of Ventura, first vice president and program chairman for the Ventura Downtown Lions Club, which supports McCarty's efforts.

"People who would otherwise be unable to see to work or carry on some of the most basic of life's activities are given the ability to do these things," Greenberg said. "This is a wonderful humanitarian thing, and Dr. McCarty and her colleagues do this as volunteers, at substantial personal expense to themselves, just to help people who are in need of help."

Because one of the goals of the Lions Club is helping the blind and sight-impaired, Greenberg said, "having a program by a local ophthalmologist who does the type of volunteer work Dr. McCarty does was something I felt would be of interest to our club members."

One helping one

One of the Lions Club members, Tony Korfel of Oxnard, was particularly inspired by McCarty because he was born and raised in Guatemala and knows well the poverty conditions that exist.

"I was so impressed with her work in Guatemala that (I), together with the Lions Club, bought an A-scan machine most needed in Guatemala for cataract surgery," Korfel said.

He spearheaded an effort to raise $3,500 to donate to the Hospital de la Familia Foundation to purchase an Accutome A-Scan for the hospital in Guatemala.

"Hospital de la Familia is located in Nuevo Progreso, San Marcos, a small town in the highlands of Guatemala," Korfel said. "The only way to get there is by a narrow dirt road that takes hours. People there are extremely poor and without the help of doctors like Dr. McCarty would go blind from simple untreated cataracts."

McCarty became interested in the volunteer effort after hearing about the tremendous need for cataract surgeries in this area.

"Patients at this clinic come from all parts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico, sometimes walk for several days to have treatment, and may wait over a year for an appointment for surgery," McCarty said.

For more information about the Hospital de la Familia Foundation, go to www.hospitaldelafamilia.com.

To contact McCarty, visit www.mccartyvision.com or call 658-3937.