Just-in-time shipment of corneas doesn’t usually require a surgeon to meet an incoming flight, within minutes of catching his outgoing flight to the island of St. Vincent, near Grenada. But on January 26th, Dr. Mark Lister picked up a package of five corneas at Newark Airport, shipped hours before by Midwest Eye-Banks’ Tissue Distribution Coordinator Holly DeMasi in Ann Arbor.

Dr. Lister, co-medical director of the Lions Eye-Bank of New Jersey, was leaving on a medical mission arranged by the medical school in Grenada. He was scheduled to perform six corneal transplants with Dr. Robert Fucigna. On the morning of his departure, he learned that there was only one cornea available from another eye bank that had agreed to supply tissue for the mission. Dr. Lister immediately called DeMasi, realizing the critical time sensitivity of the situation.

The normal procedure to obtain eye tissue for a humanitarian mission involves a letter of request in advance, detailing the tissue needed and humanitarian purpose. The letter is reviewed by Midwest administration and a determination is made whether to provide the tissue and waive the processing fee. In this emergency, DeMasi scrambled to get administrative approval quickly.

“I told Dr. Lister that we were very lucky,” says DeMasi. There happened to be an extra supply of corneas available to meet the surgery schedule each day. The only problem was that the corneas were all in Michigan and Dr. Lister was in New Jersey.

The corneas were shipped via airplane to the Newark airport terminal where Dr. Lister, waiting to board his flight, could pick them up. They arrived an hour before Dr. Lister’s flight was to leave, and he was able to pick up the box of corneas in time to depart.

DeMasi likens this experience to emergency surgery requests. “A surgeon will call and say he’s had a patient come in with a cornea perforation, and needs a cornea right away. I have to find a cornea and find the fastest way to get it to the surgery center or hospital.”

For DeMasi, it was more or less business as usual. “A lot of times, if I get a call from a surgeon returning a cornea because the patient didn’t come for surgery, I usually have that cornea redistributed to another surgeon before we even get it back to the lab,” she says. “when it gets back to the lab, we quickly repackage it and send it to the other surgeon.”

DeMasi works along, with lab staff assisting during peak periods. “My phone never stops ringing,” she says. Still, she hates a slow day.