Moran Education News
2010: A Busy Year for International Education at the Moran Eye Center
In an effort to further our outreach education initiatives and bring eye-care expertise to many regions of the world, Moran physicians, residents and fellows have traveled to many parts of the globe this past year. In addition, to further our goal of bringing the world to our door, we have hosted visiting international fellows (as part of the Freeman International Ophthalmology Fellowship Grant) from India (two in cornea, two cataract anterior segment), Bhutan (pediatric), Ghana (pediatric) and Nepal (medical retina and neuro-ophthalmology). We will have additional fellows from Rwanda (cornea) and Kenya (one in pediatric ophthalmology and one in medical retina) as well as another corneal fellow from Nepal later this year. Two of our senior residents and both corneal fellows went to the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu to work, teach and learn SICS surgery.
Dr. Bob Hoffman followed up on his training of the first pediatric ophthalmologist in Bhutan as visiting Professor in both Bhutan and Nepal and will return to both countries this year. Drs. Hoffman, Geoffrey Tabin and Alan Crandall also taught and performed surgery at our on-going clinical educational program in Kumasi, Ghana.
As part of our service for the United Nations Millennium Development Project, Drs. Tabin and Paul Bernstein and former Moran Fellow, Dr. Huck Holz, did a survey of eye disease and blindness intervention at the Bonsasso U.N. Millennium Development Village. Dr. Tabin went twice to Ethiopia. On the first trip he taught at the national teaching hospital in Addis Ababa in conjunction with Project ORBIS and chaired a meeting for Vision 20/20 planning for East Africa (set up by ORBIS). He then went to Mekele and the UN Millennium Village of Koraro to plan how to bring eye care to the Tigray region. He returned to East Africa in May 2008 for a full survey of eye disease, a cataract and trachoma intervention, teaching of SICS (with more than 700 cataract surgeries performed in the Tigray region), and training of ophthalmic nurses. In addition to Dr. Tabin the Moran Eye Center worked with a team from the Himalayan Cataract Project that included both their head nurse and ophthalmic assistant training director from the Tilganga Eye Center.
Our Division of International Ophthalmology has also coordinated medical student ophthalmology experiences in Ghana, Nepal and India for students at the University of Utah, Harvard Medical School, University of Michigan, and Ohio State University.