The Voice

UUPer and assistant clinical professor Daniella Rutnet, right, conducts an eye examination on a patient at SUNY Optometry.

One of Harriette Canellos’ patients was a 45-year-old woman with advanced glaucoma.

“She had no insurance and no job. She would have gone blind if she did not get treatment,” recalled Canellos, an associate clinical professor at SUNY Optometry. Without hesitation, Canellos provided the patient what she needed to preserve her sight.

“Nobody is turned away,” she said, a position reiterated by one of her colleagues and fellow UUPer, assistant clinical professor Daniella Rutner.

“I never look at a person’s wallet when I treat them,” Rutner, another teaching optometrist, stated. “I look at what they need and prescribe what they need, not what they can afford.”