Dr. Mark Drabkin is an ophthalmologist at the Kaiser Hospital in South Sacramento. Tomorrow, Drabkin leaves for Ho Chi Minh City where he expects to perform more than 100 cataract operations in a week.

"If we can get a good surgery done often in 30 minutes you can take someone who was blind and have them seeing again where they can now function."

Drabkin is a volunteer for Surgical Eye Expeditions, or SEE International, which deploys doctors to restore the sight of disadvantaged people around the world.

Tim Durnin with the organization says doctors like Drabkin are needed to help treat people with severe cases.  

"The kind of cataracts that they will never see in a developed country. They see thick, solid cataracts."

Drabkin, who has been on other volunteer trips to Nicaragua, Ghana, Nepal and the Philippines, is looking forward to his week in Vietnam.

"It certainly gives me back just as much as the patients get for just the opportunity to be able to go and give service like that."