Now that the nights are drawing in and Halloween is upon us again, we might find ourselves spending a bit more time inside to escape the cold and rain. With this retreat, technology use becomes more prevalent, which has reminded me of some examples of the simple problems that can still occur. These happened while on a summer holiday to Spain with my children.
On arrival at the holiday apartment, the Wi-Fi appeared not to be working. For my kids, the lack of Wi-Fi was worse than having no running water or a bed to sleep in. Fortunately, the problem was rectified in true cure-all IT fashion by turning the Wi-Fi router off and on again. However, when out and about exploring, there was again no Wi-Fi and my daughter did not have any mobile data. She therefore requested to hotspot through my mobile to enable continued internet access. She quickly burnt through all of my own mobile data scrolling through Instagram reels.
Another is that I had been persuaded of the benefits of ChatGPT and recently downloaded the app to my mobile. One evening on holiday, I asked ChatGPT to recommend a local restaurant. This action resulted in consternation from my oldest son (who specialises in the sustainability field of geoscience) who berated me for using AI for a recommendation. “Do you know much energy and water you have wasted on that AI search?” he asked me. I then received a mini lecture on AI and their massive physical data centres that consume vast amounts of electricity to power them and billions of gallons of fresh water for cooling to prevent overheating.
The bad news goes hand-in-hand with the good news in this edition of Eye News, and we headline with Black History Month, for which Toluwalogo Daramola authors a piece celebrating black ophthalmologists. In international ophthalmology, Shohista Saidkasimova describes the challenges and prospects of ophthalmology in Uzbekistan. Chinsisi Nyirenda discusses the benefits of hospital-based training and in the Vision 2020 section Astrid Leck looks at open access, global reach in her article, ‘Rethinking eye health education’.
In the Training section, Kraig Jamieson discusses the role of clinical teaching fellows in ophthalmology, making their case for developing peer-to-peer support. Amar Alwitry covers the unlabelled syringe: an avoidable Medication rick in ophthalmic surgery, in the medicolegal section. For the AI & Oculomics section, Ziggy Shah examines what the high street needs before AI-enabled systemic risk assessment moves from laboratory to consulting room. In our Top Tips section, Soha Nabi details the essential ophthalmology skills for a junior doctor. Elsewhere we have our regular Case Reports, Book and Journal Reviews and Culture Section.
It was on my return to work from holiday that I was faced with my biggest technology trouble. At first, everything seemed to be good. In my absence, every computer in the ophthalmology department had been given a second monitor. ‘That will make life slightly easier,’ I thought. I asked a colleague what had prompted the extra monitors. “It is to prepare for the arrival of an electronic patient record (EPR) system,” he replied. Having chatted to other colleagues around the country, I have not heard of any EPR system that has made life easier for the clinician. The impending EPR is a nightmare to come for me and I’m sure will feature in a future update. – PC
