Dr. James Stewart spent his first year at Mercy Care doing what optometrists do — examining eyes and looking for abnormalities — while also hoping to secure grant money to purchase an OCT machine. An optical coherent tomographer (OCT) works like a CAT scan for your eyes; showing frame by frame the microscopic ‘slices’ of your eye. It can detect potential causes of blindness in early stages — glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of preventable vision loss.

When two big boxes carrying the machine arrived last month, Chamblee facilities manager John Smith was eager to see what was in store. As they unpacked the technology, John offered to be the “guinea pig” for Dr. Stewart while he trained MCC phlebotomist Natasha Bruner.

On the first test, the machine made a diagnosis. Natasha double-checked John’s blood sugar and confirmed: John had diabetes and hadn’t known. They scheduled John a next-day appointment at the clinic to get him medications to manage his new diagnosis.

“I could have done some serious damage to myself if Dr. Stewart had not found this problem,” John said. “Fortunately, the only thing wrong with me was the diabetes and my stubbornness keeping me from getting a physical. What he found caused me to have a change of heart.”

More than a change of heart, John made a change of lifestyle. “I cut out all the sugar immediately; I drink water now,” John said. Since the diagnosis, John has been a regular at the staff gym and reports eating vegetables every day. The winning combination of diet and exercise, he reports, has cut his glucose levels in half.

Since implementation at the clinic, the OCT machine has been used at least twice a day to check patients’ vision and internal health. “Nobody has a better OCT machine than this, it’s very high-tech,” Dr. Stewart said. “John was literally the first person we ever used the machine on, and we diagnosed diabetes on the spot. That’s pretty incredible.”

John was the first of many who have received potentially life-saving diagnoses thanks to Dr. Stewart’s initiative. John’s story reminds us we all have vulnerabilities that need noticing, and health that needs care. According to the World Health Organization, more than 75% of people living with diabetes for more than 15 years will develop vision problems, and 10% will suffer significant vision loss.