Page 3 - Lion's Gift of Sight Fall Newsletter
P. 3

Veronique evaluates corneas on the specular microscope.
Veronique Grimes Retires from Eye Banking
September was a bittersweet time for Lions Gift of Sight as our lab operations manager, Veronique Grimes, CEBT, COMT, took a well-deserved retirement. A titan in the eye banking profession who poured her heart and soul into sight preservation, Veronique was a treasured team member of Lions Gift of Sight for 32 years.
But it was only chance that led Veronique to us. After receiving a B.A. in biology, she intended to make this field her life’s work. But, needing to fund her graduate work in biochemistry, Veronique took a job as a technician in an ophthalmology operating suite. She promptly fell in love with the medical profession, especially the work of caring for eyes, and never looked back.
Veronique became a certified ophthalmic medical technologist (COMT), working with some of the leading Minnesota ophthalmologists of the time. She also began volun- teering for the Minnesota Lions Eye Bank (now Lions Gift of Sight), which was down the hall from her day job. She was trained as an enucleator and began recovering donor eyes almost every weekend. Never one to do things by halves, Veronique con- tinued as an eye recovery technician for 17 years, enucleating more than 1,500 eyes!
Wherever Veronique lands, she is valued for her talents and dedication. She be- came recovery technician supervisor. She started donor coordination and devoted 16 years to the work. However, her skills at tissue processing and tissue evaluation were second to none, and she was promoted to lab manager and led the technical staff for her remaining years at Lions Gift of Sight.
Eye banking is anything but simple. Veronique knows every detail of the craft and has led our eye bank through:
;changes from enucleation (whole eye) to in situ (cornea only) recovery ࡟
;changes from full thickness cornea transplants to transplants of cornea layers ࡟
changes from sending unprocessed corneas to surgeons to sending corneas ࡟
stamped, cut, peeled, preloaded into an inserter, scored, etc.;
;changes from little to great regulation ࡟
.changes from cooperation to competition ࡟
Veronique’s steadfast focus on safety and quality of human tissue intended for transplant and her consistency and dedication to her craft have made the eye bank- ing profession what it is today. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and Veronique Grimes is one of those individuals who has given us a herculean leg up.
Veronique uses the slit lamp microscope to examine a donor cornea.
“Veronique is one of the most dedicated, conscientious, and competent individuals I have ever worked with, not just in eye banking but all of medicine. She is the ultimate professional, strives for excellence and wants to make eye banking and corne- al transplantation outcomes as good as can be.”
— Edward J. Holland, MD Director of Cornea Services Cincinnati Eye Institute Professor of Ophthalmology University of Cincinnati
LIONSGIFTOFSIGHT.UMN.EDU 3

















































































   1   2   3   4   5