I slipped off my sandals to step into a worn-down building in Kilpennathur in the summer of 2024. Inside, royal blue walls, neon orange saris, and bright white dhotis illuminated the small room. Two female optometrists, not much older than me, staffed the clinic with quiet confidence. This “vision center” was one of more than a hundred satellite facilities run by Aravind Eye Hospital to reach South India’s most remote, hardest-to-access patients.
My eyes were drawn to a woman wearing a red sari and gold bangles. Her cheeks caved into her skull, and she was missing many toes. Her eyes carried a haunted expression, but she sat patiently. Through a translator, I learned she had lost her artificial eye years earlier after being violently cast out of her home. She lives outside a temple, reliant on occasional food offerings, and walked nearly three hours to the clinic. Finances, transportation, familial support, literacy — all seemed like insurmountable attainments for this woman. But now, for just 20 rupees — the equivalent of 25 cents — she could access sight-restoring care.
When I started in Penn’s Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management (LSM), the dual curriculum seemed at odds. How could business, often driven by efficiency, short-term performance, and top-down decisions, mesh with science and medicine, which reward patient curiosity, immense uncertainty, and bottom-up discoveries?
Read the full story in Wharton Magazine.
By Amanda Madison Kossoff, C’27, W’27
Posted: August 10, 2026
