Mobile Update: Rural Ophthalmology

How lucky am I that there is a Mercy Vision project in this area?

Basically, cataract surgeries are done here courtesy of Mercy Ships, who also train a local doctor to perform the surgery. Thousands of South Africans are blinded by treatable causes such as cataracts, and the aim is to alleviate some of that.

Because January is a crazy month and the project centre had nobody to scrub in to assist, they almost had to cancel surgeries.

BUT med students are allowed to assist! And I am the only med student here. Heh.

By “assist” I mean pass instruments and drip solution on the cornea. Eyes are waaaaay too important to allow a medical student with a sharp implement nearby, I think. I did essentially the same thing a scrub nurse would do, which gave me a much better vantage point than what I had when observing cataract surgery during my Ophthalmology rotation. That alone made it worth it a hundred times over.

I’m pretty sure the doctor would have been just fine without me, but I’m not complaining – it was an AWESOME learning opportunity.

It was interesting to see the slight variation in techniques. The technique used here was sutureless and seemed less complicated than what I had seen before.

I also respect scrub nurses a lot more now. Not that I didn’t before – they’re intense!

The surgeries were quick, fluent and amazing. I want to do that one day.