Thailand calling
CHICORA — Chicora Eye Care owner Dr. Chris Rugaber will leave his practice soon to move to Thailand. But the practice is here to stay so patients have no need to wipe their eyes.
Chicora Eye Care will become a Butler Eye Care satellite office in October, with a husband and wife doctor duo taking over the Chicora practice.
“They will be able to expand and improve upon services because there’s Dr. Michael McGrath and his wife, Dr. Jennifer McGrath,” Rugaber said. “By incorporating the two practices, Butler and Chicora Eye Care, they’ll be able to provide more services, support with a larger patient base, be able to offer more sophisticated testing with expensive equipment.”
Rugaber, who opened Chicora Eye Care in 1998 with co-founder Carol Lanier, will move to Thailand to do missionary work at a Bangkok church, teach optometry at a university, and be with his wife, Thanamas, a Thai native who he married in April.
Lanier left the Chicora Eye Care practice last year.
Despite maintaining the practice in Chicora, Rugaber is no stranger to Thailand.
“I’ve been working in Thailand since 1987. I’ve taught for different organizations and did work helping the church over there since about 2002,” he said.
For the past three years, he’s flown to Thailand about every six weeks, for two- to three-week intervals. He’s helped with Bible study and teaching English at a church.
Once he moves there, he will teach optometry classes at Rangsit University, and will be a Thai linguist for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Moving there permanently was simply the next step, he said.
“I’m a Christian. I believe that’s what I’ve been designed to do. And that’s my calling. And I have a job to do there,” Rugaber said.
“And to be able to make the transition from practicing here to moving to Thailand, it’s a big hurdle to be able to take care of all the little things that need to be done. But one huge example is the way that Chicora Eye Care can help meet Butler Eye Care’s needs.
“And that just seems to be too perfect of a fit to be a random sort of thing,” he said. “... Within a month, Butler Eye Care said ‘yeah, this is something that would be really good for us.’ Because I anticipated it would be really hard to find a good fit. But I think God just worked it all out.”
Butler Eye Care owner Lori Randall said she had considered expanding her office before, but this is the first time the opportunity arose to do so. The fit seemed right from her point of view, too.
“I grew up in the area. My mom worked at the high school; my dad worked at one of the local plants. I’m familiar with the demographics and the people out there. And I think that they would react very well to Dr. Jennifer and Dr. Michael,” Randall said. “I think Dr. Rugaber and Dr. (Michael) McGrath are very similar in how they treat their patients.”
“Which happens to be very, very good!” said Dr. Michael McGrath with a laugh.
“We’re going to continue to offer the same excellent medical eye care, as well as glasses and contact lenses that Dr. Rugaber has always provided.”
Even with doctors changing, the three patient care staff members at Chicora Eye Care will remain the same.
Butler Eye Care opened in 1989. Its services cover glasses, contact lenses, ocular disease treatment, glaucoma, ocular degeneration, cataracts, emergency eye care, and monitoring possible side effects from high risk medications. All of those services and others will be offered at Chicora Eye Care as well.
Also, the staff at Butler Eye Care often goes to nursing homes to fix and adjust glasses, or take frames and fit patients with glasses.
With Chicora Eye Care being near to the Chicora Medical Center, the same service will be offered there.
