Steve Prough, his wife Kathy and their entire extended family can't imagine getting vision care anywhere other than the UCI Health Gavin Herbert Eye Institute.
Steve Prough is used to running into family members at the UCI Health Gavin Herbert Eye Institute. His two sisters and one of his cousins are patients, as is his wife, Kathy. They laugh when they cross paths in a hallway or unexpectedly see each other in a waiting room.
The family’s connection with the eye institute started more than a decade ago when his mother, Nancy Sattler, became a patient of Dr. Baruch Kuppermann, who is now the Roger F. Steinert Professor and Chair of the UC Irvine School of Medicine’s Department of Ophthalmology. The whole family trusted Sattler’s choice — she’d been married to a Mayo Clinic ophthalmologist for 20 years and always did her research before choosing any doctor.
Sattler sought care because her vision was significantly affected by age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Prough often drove his mother to appointments with Kuppermann long before the eye institute was built on the UC Irvine campus.
Hereditary AMD
AMD, like their family’s blue eyes, is partially hereditary. Now Prough and both of his sisters are being treated for the condition, as is a cousin. It’s not only his mother’s endorsement that keeps him coming back. He, too, holds Kuppermann in high regard.
“Quite frankly, when you talk to him, you realize he is brilliant and funny,” says Prough, who enjoys joking with the doctor — especially about shots he receives to control his AMD, which causes straight lines to appear wavy.
“Dr. Kuppermann really looks at my situation each month, where my eyes are in the process, and then determines if I need a shot or not," Prough says. "He’s very conscientious in that way.”
Cataract care, too
Prough also sees a number of other eye institute ophthalmologists, including retina specialist Dr. Andrew Browne and cornea specialist Dr. Marjan Farid, who performed cataract surgery on both Prough and his wife Kathy.
Since her surgery this summer, Kathy Prough says she now sees everything in vivid color and can fully appreciate the sweeping view from her coastal Orange County home all the way to Malibu, 75 miles away. During the operation, Farid was training two residents, which the family appreciates.
“There are always a lot of other doctors around, and they want to learn from the best,” says Kathy Prough. "Dr. Farid really is very, very talented.”
Major gift
The Prough family is so grateful for the vision care they have received at the eye institute, they made a major gift to support ophthalmology in 2023. Now, an area on the second floor is named the Stephen and Kathleen Prough Family Waiting Room in their honor.
“It’s incredibly important to have this kind of resource in our own backyard,” says Prough. “There’s no reason to drive anywhere else. From our experience, Gavin Herbert Eye Institute is the best in its class.”
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