Like many before him, Dr. Akshay Patil felt like an Alaskan as soon as he set foot in Nome.

"As soon as you get here, everyone knows your name,” he said. "The driver for the one cab service, Checker Cab, picked me up during my first week in town, and he said, ‘Aren’t you the eye doctor?’ Everyone knows each other and everybody takes care of each other. I can’t get over how welcoming people are right away.” 

Indeed Patil, an optometrist who splits his time between Denver and Nome, is taking care of the people he has come to love, the people he hopes someday to call his fellow Alaskans. He’s one of them. Or at least he’s working on it.

"I haven’t lived here long enough to be an Alaskan,” he said. "I haven’t earned it. I don’t consider myself an Alaskan. I’ve only lived through one winter. In Alaska, someone who has been here for several winters is called a sourdough. I only have been through one winter, so I don’t think I’m even a sourdough yet.” 

Nevertheless, the people of Alaska whom he has come to love have helped him fulfill a dream to do something that makes a difference for people. He has always looked for opportunities to help, and his wandering practice takes him to some small and underserved communities in the Nome area. 

It was in his early 20s that Patil was convinced that running his own optometry clinic was his destiny.

"You can change people’s lives immediately, whether it’s giving them glasses or getting them cataract surgery,” he said. "It’s a fast way to change a life, and the fact that I could open my own practice kept me going.”

As part of his Alaska experience, Patil has volunteered at the 2022 Iditarod, The Last Great Race, at a checkpoint on the race’s route. When he discovered that the race begins in Anchorage and ends in Nome, he wanted to get involved. He became a member of the Iditarod and offered to volunteer at the event.

Offer accepted, in 2022 Patil got his chance to participate in the 1,000-mile race. Despite a positive Covid test and a five-day quarantine, Patil saw firsthand what the grueling event can do to the human body when he volunteered at one of the rest stations on the route.

He flew from Nome to Anchorage to see the beginning of the race. Because 2022 was the fiftieth anniversary of the race, he said the atmosphere was charged with enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm rubbed off on Patil. 

"I wanted to be part of it no matter what,” he said. "I was being somewhat a tourist and somewhat a volunteer. But I was able to see all the dogs and I got to know the mushers. If you don’t involve yourself, you are missing something. It definitely lived up to my expectations. These people are full of grit, and they all have a great attitude. They all have stories.

"Just finishing the race means something. It speaks to the ruggedness of the race. You really have to survive the elements, and just watching them take on the challenge brought me to the Iditarod." 

But it wasn’t the Iditarod that first attracted Patil to Alaska. It was the chance to help the people with whom he feels a special connection. He spends time each month in the villages of the Nome area, bringing all of his optometric gear into the rural areas where small villages are located.

He treats his patients for various eye-related problems such as diabetic retinopathy or glaucoma as well as other eye conditions. The worst case he has seen involved a man who had gotten lost in a snowstorm. The man had a tracker in his shoe and when rescuers found him, he had severe eye issues.

"He had frostbite around his eyes, and he couldn’t see,” Patil said. "His hands were frosted. They sent him (to the hospital). But that’s something you don’t see in the Lower 48, that kind of frostbite.”

Such are the events of Patil’s Alaska experience, traveling to small villages to help them get the eye care they need. And his adventures have taken him to tiny, remote villages in the Nome area.

"We go wherever Bering Air will fly,” he said. "You become part of the community for a week. These villages are anywhere between 200 and 800 people. I was able to see just what could be done when a guy moves to a place like this.  I don’t think there’s a job like this in the Lower 48." 

Meanwhile, he has become one of Nome’s biggest boosters.

 "If anybody wants to come to Nome, Alaska, I highly recommend it,” he said. "This is as outdoorsy as it gets. This is one big national park.”