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Specialty doctor interviews

I started my training as an ophthalmologist in the Wild West of Carmarthenshire where I did my first laser procedure, first phacoemulsification and first slit-lamp examination. All of these firsts were done under the tutelage of very skilled staff grade...

We are all Hadiza

When I worked as a registrar at Newport many years ago I remember a no-nonsense corneal consultant railing about the way the tragic case of Lucie Linforth was being reported in the media. Lucie was a toddler taken into a...

The vitreoretinal priesthood

When I first started doing cataract lists, the consultant at the time, a Mr Brown from Carmarthen, used to say that phacoemulsification was more akin to flying a jet fighter for short dangerous bombing runs than a boring long haul...

Move 78

The Soviet Union still existed throughout my formative years, along with a vague undefinable miasma of possible war that generated films such as Red Dawn and Rocky IV. My favourite film from that era was called War Games, in which,...

Informed consent – the Brexit test

The Medical Defence Union (MDU) runs courses on various medicolegal topics. I would guess people only ever attend these courses if they have an exam or an interview approaching as the subject matter is exceedingly dry for clinicians. I myself...

A case of late spontaneous subluxation of in-the-bag intraocular implant

An 82-year-old frail lady was referred by her optometrist with a finding of subluxated implant in the right eye. She had uneventful phacoemulcification with in-the-bag intraocular implant 17 years earlier. There is no history of having had pseudoexfoliation (PXF) or...

The results of the last survey Jun21

Thank you so much again for participating in the survey. I have been asked to give several talks at regional teaching sessions about some of the issues I discuss in these articles and I am happy to continue to do...

The results of the last survey Oct21

This edition’s survey questions moved away from the deep and ethically charged questions of the recent surveys and focussed on simple and straightforward issues. This is really where the surveys began in exploring the minor practice variations which we have...

On the wrong track

A 65-year-old very high myope lady presented with sudden blurred vision down to count fingers to her right eye after a short and sharp pain. She also described seeing a black swirly line and as all these symptoms were exactly...

Preventing refractive surprises by real time biometry during cataract surgery

A few months ago a retired lady presented for second eye cataract surgery. I noted on the pre-op ward round that the outcome of her first eye’s surgery looked like a refractive surprise as her spherical equivalent in that eye...

An arm and a leg

“It cost me an arm and a leg.” – Mr B told me. An arm and a leg to be seen by the famous Russian eye surgeon who said that everybody can be spectacle-free. He took Mr B’s money (roughly...