MusiCares’ Healthy Essentials Program — a series of medical clinics providing free healthcare services of all kinds to music industry professionals — is the heart of the organization’s preventative care services. Throughout the year, MusiCares partners with medical providers of all kinds to bring these services to music people nationwide. These providers often generously offer their services to MusiCares at a reduced rate, out of their service-minded and kind hearts, allowing MusiCares to serve even more music people in need.
One of those providers is Will Grant, MD, an ophthalmologist who launched his nonprofit, Will Grant Vision, to deliver eye exams and glasses, for free, to low-income children and families in need. He works with MusiCares to provide free eye exams and vision care services to clients.
To thank providers for their service, MusiCares is instituting a new “Provider Spotlight” series. Each month, MusiCares will highlight one of their amazing providers with an interview that dives deeper into their work, their story, and what drew them to MusiCares.
To kick off the series, MusiCares is proud to present an interview between Dr. Grant and MusiCares’ Managing Director of Health Services, Stephanie Curtiss.
How did you first become interested in eye care?
My father is from Ghana, Africa, and when I was in high school, he introduced me to a bunch of relatives who I'd never met before. I would say about 25 percent of them were blind. They all had visual impairment, and it was devastating. The whole family structure had to mold to the needs of these individuals.
My father had enough insight to let me know that many of the reasons as to why they were blind were preventable. Glaucoma, cataracts — some of them just had a really, really bad need for glasses. Ghana itself had a dearth of medical providers, eye care specialists specifically. I think, at the time, there were only about five or six surgeons in the entire country for 26 or 27 million people — so, profoundly underserved. And it was then that I started to think, "If I had the proper training and the proper skills, I could potentially come back here and help out people like my relatives." And thinking more globally, help out people in all kinds of places that might have similar issues with preventable blindness.
I worked tirelessly throughout medical school to get into ophthalmology — it's a pretty competitive specialty. The moment that I finished, I started my nonprofit. The reality of medicine, especially here in the United States, is a lot of it's just about money. So I started Will Grant Vision.
As time has changed, and I've worked more in the communities that are here in the United States, I've come to understand that there's an incredible need and an incredible [amount of] underserved communities here in the States, and that all of the aid didn't necessarily need to flow beyond our borders. At this point, we are dedicated to the domestic population.
Will Grant Vision is an organization here in the United States that gives free eye exams and glasses. We work to change how people see through those means. And we've actually expanded the mission a bit in recent years to try to work to change the how and what people see also — “how” is the eye exams and glasses, and “what” is images that people are able to look at that that help to inspire them, and help to realize dreams that otherwise might be deferred.
Why do you think vision care is so important?
The eye itself is majestic. The [phrase] “it's a window to the soul,” is well known, but it's really a window into our body. When I look into the eye, it gives me goosebumps. It connects the stars and the universe and everything for me. You're able to essentially see the inner workings of the body.
The eye is the only place in the entire body that you can actually look at a blood vessel without angiography, a CT scan, or something more invasive. And it's also the only place that you can see a nerve in your body, which is unbelievable.
One of the major advancements in eye care has been the introduction of really advanced imaging. We can take really, really cool pictures of people's blood vessels and nerves, and there's computers and algorithms that have really helped to quantitate certain measures of them.
For instance, looking at the nerve in your eye is actually a good indicator for whether or not somebody is at risk of developing Parkinson's or Alzheimer's — and if they do have it, how bad the disease might be progressing. It's difficult to know that otherwise. You can take an MRI and try to quantitate certain measures of how thick somebody's nervous system is, but really the eye is the window to it. For the populations that we serve — who oftentimes are not attached to a primary care physician or have really good care continuously — the eye is a really easy way to catch [bigger issues].
Obviously I’m incredibly biased, but [vision care] is a way to start to engage somebody that's otherwise detached from the healthcare system. It's friendly, it's easy, there's no shots. Everyone's super familiar with the 20/20 thing, and they're generally not afraid of it. If you do it well, you're compassionate in that space, and kind of make people feel comfortable, then you can definitely become an advocate for the rest of their body.
You started a nonprofit mobile unit to help people get eye exams. Tell us more about that.
The first thing that I did out of residency was start the nonprofit. I had been a part of a program that had a mobile van that would go into preschools in the area and do all kinds of things — hearing screenings, vision screenings. Part of the issue with disparity is, oftentimes people don't have access to care. They don't have transportation to actually get to the doctor's office, in many of the communities that we're talking about. It's much easier for people to actually engage with the service if it's delivered to them.
I found an old Sprinter van on eBay, and spent all of my savings on turning it into an eye mobile. At first I was only going to be kind of "for the people" full-time, and figured life would take care of me eventually. After I ran out of savings, I realized I needed to get a job, because I needed to buy equipment for this thing. So I got a job, and really my job was just to fund the van.
We were scrappy, and we got some new stuff. Some people donated things. After about three years or so, we finally fully equipped the van with everything that we needed. There are still some things that we need — some of the imaging stuff, for instance, that helps you to take really cool pictures and chronicle what somebody's nerve looked like this month versus the next month, which is important when you're talking about progressive diseases. But we have the basics, and we have everything we need to really be able to give somebody a full eye exam in the traditional sense of it.
The van now has been up and running for three years, roughly. I do it every weekend. The next phase of things is for me to be able to stop working like a Monday through Friday type of job so that I can start spending more time on the van, and more time delivering services to various communities.
At this point, I'm still self-funding a lot of it. But we've been fortunate. We've had a bunch of people donate glasses. There's been a lot of glitches along the way, and a lot of obstacles that we've had to overcome, but fortunately, we've had really good people around us.
We’ve talked about partnering with you to bring the van to music festivals, because a larger proportion of music industry folks are uninsured. And even if they are insured, they don't have vision and dental. We also know that when they're on the road, it's very hard for them to take time off to get to a doctor.
We're super interested in that, actually. I started the process of getting medical licenses for that very purpose. I just got my Florida license, my Illinois license so now we can get to Chicago for Lollapalooza. This year, I plan to have essentially almost every state, for reasons like that, so we can kind of continue to move around.
You have a campaign called #visioniscool, which is designed to inspire children to be confident in glasses. Tell us a little bit about where that came from and what your larger mission is with it.
We go through a lot to try to help children see, and at the end of the day, oftentimes kids just need a pair of glasses. Many children struggle to wear a pair of glasses simply because they don't think they're cool, and the kids around them don't think that they're cool.
That's really the genesis of #visioniscool for the world to kind of rally together and show people that vision is cool. It was founded to inspire children to wear their glasses to give them the confidence that they need to realize that it's not only cool to be able to see stuff, but they can actually look cool in glasses. They don't have to feel like they're not accepted.
The challenge is for people to put a piece of tape in the middle of their glasses and take a picture that's really cool — there's nothing more nerdy than wearing a pair of glasses with tape in the middle, so we want to kind of recreate that. It changes the power of that symbol, and repurposes it for something that is a symbol of confidence and a symbol of inspiration, rather than a symbol of nerdiness. And nerds are cool — at the end of the day, they've contributed tons to the world. But we purposely wanted to take that symbol and make it something new.
Really the campaign is to try to get everyday people taking pictures in their glasses, and posting, #visioniscool to inspire children to wear their glasses.
If people wanted to support you, would that be through purchasing glasses from you? Is that where the funding comes from?
There’s a number of ways to do it. Purchasing a pair of glasses from us is a great way. We’ve created glasses that kind of help to promote the cause — one pair has a white line down the middle, so instead of it actually being tape, it’s more built into the frame. They’re on our webpage, they’re called the Towards 2020 glasses.
Or you can donate. We accept donations on our webpage. If you’re in any of the service areas that we’re currently providing services for, which is Los Angeles or Wisconsin, you can come out and support some of our events. We hold events where we try to do some relatively mass vision screenings.
Ultimately, we want to build the infrastructure to have a full glasses webpage, a la Warby Parker or something like that. All of the sales of those glasses — outside of the cost of actually making them for you — would be donated to the organization for us to continue to promote and support communities. That will hopefully be within the next three or four months that we'll have that to offer.
We have another thing called Got Vision? We took the Got Milk campaign and have now created Got Vision? It's an affirmation of how things will be towards the manifestation of our dreams. So tell us what you see for your future and what you see for our collective future. We also have merchandise that's attached to that. So we have T-shirts and hats. Any vision screening that I do, we're always wearing our Got Vision? outfits.
How did you hear about MusiCares? And how would you say you feel like MusiCares and your mission really overlap?
MusiCares is the goal, right? If I were to be able to do anything in the world, I would create an organization like MusiCares. To be able to harness the power of giving and to allow people to live their best lives, pursue their passions, and support them in that journey is the vision. That's 100 percent what we're trying to do, and we're just using vision as a way to do that. Vision is very empowering, and it really kind of is a tool — glasses themselves are a tool that help people to hopefully be like Superman and be able to do whatever you want to do.
Beyond what you’re able to do for people, and beyond that collective effort that you guys are putting forth, if you think about what music has done for the world, I don’t think there’s anything that’s been more impactful. The people I see through MusiCares, they’re all very grateful for what we’re doing, and I tell them, “Please keep doing what you do. I’m grateful for what you are putting out. You’re creating original stuff, you’ve gotten people through some dark times, and your reach is unmatched.”
So MusiCares is a dream affiliation, honestly. Not only from an inspiration of what Will Grant Vision aspires to do for people, but also to collectively harness the power of what music gives to the world through vision is really a dream come true.
You created a pair of glasses specifically for musicians, right?
Yeah, we actually make glasses out of vinyl records. So you can get your favorite record made into your favorite pair of glasses.
When I was in the trenches thinking about ways to engage communities, and engage people that otherwise are detached from healthcare, I thought about using culture. Culture is kind of the thing that really unites us, and for communities that are otherwise really disparate, music is the thing that oftentimes lifts them up and empowers them. So I said, “How can I fuse glasses with music?”
The main instrument of hip-hop is a set of turntables. The name of the specific turntable that actually allowed the innovation of scratching and mixing were called the technique turntables. So we recreated a pair of glasses called the Technics, and they're the best pair of glasses ever created in the history of the world. I promise you that is not hyperbole.
The Technics were made in Japan in the same town that the actual turntables were made. Every part of a turntable is recreated into the glasses so they actually have vinyl record, they sit on top of a platter, the platter has all the strobe dots — all of the elements of a turntable, the mixer with the crossfader in the middle, that’s the bridge of our glasses. It really is unbelievable.
The reason why we did that was so that we could have conversations with people about culture. Everyone wears a pair of cool sunglasses. So we want to engage people around culture and fuse that into vision, health and wellness — looking into your eye to be able to tell you about high blood pressure, and all that stuff. It's hard to necessarily have that conversation if somebody doesn't want to have it. But they want to have a conversation about a cool pair of glasses. We're using glasses as a tool to be able to kind of integrate health into that space.
We've been trying to talk to music, and integrate with music since the onset. That’s what makes Will Grant Vision different. It's really kind of a conversation with culture that we want to be able to have with people, and through that conversation, we want to open the door to better health.
What are some examples of ways that you've helped those who have come to you through MusiCares like your music care specific clients?
I remember every single person really well. There have been people that have told me that they've never had an eye exam before. Some of them are in an orchestra, and as they're reading music, they're realizing that it's getting a lot tougher for them to actually be able to see the notes. They're getting a lot of eyestrain, they're getting a lot of headaches, they are not certain as to whether or not it's something that can be addressed or can be helped.
We created a custom solution for them. The reading glasses that you get at the stores are of a certain strength, you can't really get smaller numbers. This individual was still relatively young, and he needed some of the smaller numbers that you wouldn't be able to just go to the Dollar Store or Walgreens to be able to buy. So we gave him two pairs of glasses, and he was happy as a clam.
There's another gentleman who manages a lot of bands — he named really incredible bands that he worked with throughout his career. Now, he's trying to transition from music to being in front of the camera. He was starting to develop something that we call dermatochalasis, which is where your eyes start to droop. There's a new drop that just hit the market that we were able to give him that helps to kind of tighten the muscles so that they raise up. He felt a lot more confident about his looks, and the castings that he was going on.
Every single person that we've seen, I could tell you a story around. More than anything, I'm really pleased to be able to actually speak to and spend time with the individuals. Through the conversations that we have, and through the time that we spend with them, we’re able to listen to them in a way that many doctors probably don’t.
It’s a personal space when we’re interacting with people. The spaces that we’ve created that we’ve seen MusiCares [clients] through are all personal. It’s more like, welcome to our living room and let’s have a conversation — and oh, by the way, we’re going to help you see better. That’s what we really want to be, and ultimately I think that’s what we put forth — especially for the MusiCares group.