Eyes wide, the young uninsured man from Venezuela gazed deeply into Maria Vega-Garces’ ophthalmoscope. The signs of damage from glaucoma – painless to the patient – were obvious to the student: degenerative changes to the optic nerve. “Glaucoma is one of those pathologies that disproportionately affects underserved minority patients,” said Vega-Garces, a fourth-year medical student at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark. “If this man hadn’t come to our community clinic, he may have lost his sight.” That Saturday afternoon clinic in 2021 is seared in Vega-Garces’ memory. Held at a local church in West New York, N.J., hundreds of community members cued for hours to be seen by members of the Student Sight Savers, a student-run program that provides free vision care. To read the full story.