Ophthalmology
The sexist lens addressing cataract-induced blindness in women
Ninety percent of the world’s blind population resides in low-income, developing countries [1]. The primary cause of their blindness is cataract, a condition that is easily treatable and unnecessary. A cataract is the clouding of the eye’s lens, often resulting...
Charity work in Cambodia: Culture, cataracts, and cruelty
Cambodia has one of the lowest numbers of eye specialist doctors per capita in the world, and Bita Manzouri takes us on a journey into the charitable work of the Khmer Sight Foundation who are working to combat this. “Ut...
Progress for a more sustainable practice in ophthalmology
Climate change is widely considered to be the greatest threat to health in the 21st century and is accompanied by other environmental considerations such as air and water pollution that impact on human health [1,2]. These problems are, in no...
75th Anniversary year of the first intraocular lens implant
The 29th of November 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the first intraocular lens implant by our Founder, Sir Harold Ridley FRS. The United Kingdom & Ireland Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgeons (UKISCRS) is marking the event with a...
Report on preoperative visual acuities of patients from two AMM surgical trips to Magdalena, Northern Bolivia
The Andean Medical Mission (AMM), founded in 2012, recently celebrated 12 years of dedicated service in the Bolivian Amazon, aiming to eliminate avoidable blindness. Over this period, AMM has successfully performed over 1700 surgeries, including for children with congenital or...
My Top Five: Ophthalmology learning tools for doctors
Starting a career in ophthalmology can be both exciting and demanding. Despite its captivating and broad nature, ophthalmology often proves challenging for beginners around the globe due to limited exposure during medical school [1–5]. Fortunately, plenty of resources are available,...
Part 3: The Arclight Project: Implementation workshops
In this three-part series (Click here for Part 1 and Part 2) Andrew Blaikie and his team explore the role and application of the Arclight Device in Imaging of the Eye. The Arclight Project aims to support and enhance the...
Belfast briefing: Retina Day roundup from the RCOphth 2024 Annual Congress
Belfast hosted this year’s Royal College of Ophthalmologists’ (RCOphth) Annual Congress, a meeting dedicated to sharing advances, knowledge and clinical practice points in ophthalmic care. This article summarises selected talks by medical and surgical retina specialists during the Retina Subspecialty...
East Bound and Down: Patrick Staropoli
One of my heroes growing up in the 70s was the iconic Formula 1 racing driver, James Hunt. At the time, if you had asked me and my primary school friends what we would most like to do for a...
Ridley Eye Foundation’s Spring camp programme
The Ridley Eye Foundation continues its work in taking surgery to patients in remote communities living above 2000m in Nepal’s Himalayas. This spring, between 28 March – 7 April 2024, we supported surgical camps in Jumla and Mugu, both in...
Enhancing ophthalmology training: Unleashing the power of simulation
Ethical and practical barriers hinder early surgical experience in ophthalmology training [1], which is problematic when early-career trainees bring a higher risk of poor surgical outcomes and patient harm [2]. The European working time directive and the surgical backlog secondary...
Ophthalmic exposure for emergency medicine doctors
Emergency medicine is a challenging specialty which requires managing a range of acute issues. In this article, I explore the experiences of emergency doctors towards ophthalmic cases presenting in the emergency department, identifying what initiatives have helped trainees. Emergency medicine...
