Dr Neeraj SHARMA

Faculty of Health and Medical Science

S.G.T. University, Gurgaon

India

'For one month, I could observe various cornea surgeries.'

I am grateful to Asia Cornea Society for providing me a wonderful opportunity of visiting outstanding Cornea Centre in Japan. Asia Cornea Society Santen Education Grant gave me a chance to spend one month i.e. 15th May 2017 to 15th June 2017 at Department of Ophthalmology, Tokyo Dental College, Ichikawa General Hospital. My learning objective for this one-month period was to observe DALK and DSAEK and I was fortunate enough to observe Professor Jun Shimazaki performing DALK on the first day of my observer ship. The one-month period of observer ship was planned meticulously by Prof. Shimazaki and his team and I was provided with OPD and OT schedule on the first day. I was impressed with the functioning of the department, the important point being the Monday morning one-hour departmental meeting discussing surgery schedule for the week. On Wednesday morning Professor Shimazaki used to take ward rounds, each admitted patient was examined and treatment protocol discussed and reviewed. Every Thursday evening was reserved for journal club in which interesting O.P.D cases were discussed. It was a month long academic extravaganza for me.

For one month, I could observe various cornea surgeries. I observed DALK for keratoconus and DSAEK for bullous keratopathy which was my primary learning objective. In addition to DALK and DSAEK I also observed various corneal surgeries such as patch graft for peripheral thin cornea, LKP, Limbal transplants PKP, amniotic membrane transplants.

In OPD I observed variety of interesting and challenging cornea cases which included Steven Johnson syndrome, chemical burn patients, OCP, corneal dystrophies and conjunctival chalasis.. My discussions with Dr. Yamaguchi on CMV Keratitis was enlightening. Dr. Yamaguchi discussed his research interest of topographic interpretation of scared corneas. Equally interesting was the idea to use rigid gas permeable lenses to increase visual acuity in scared cornea. Use of anterior segment oct to interpret higher order aberration in scared cornea was a novel concept for me.

My visit to cornea center of Ichikawa general Hospital was helpful as I observed various eye banking techniques including preservation of cornea button as well as procedure to prepare precut corneal buttons to be used for DSAEK.

I had a chance to visit Keio University cornea clinic. I observed Dr. Shimura at his cornea clinic. In addition to observing cornea clinics and surgeries I was fortunate to visit glaucoma operating theatre at KEIO University, Tokyo. Dr. Shiba performed trabeculotomy and trabeculectomy.

I would like to thank all staff members of Department of Ophthalmology at Tokyo Dental College for making my stay comfortable and academically enriching. I would recommend young as well as practicing corneal surgeons to apply for Asia Cornea Society Educational Grant .