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My experience at the LOEC in Prague: So much to gain in just 2 days
In addition to educational opportunities, young ophthalmologists gain camaraderie with colleagues.
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“Don’t wait for your ship to come in; swim out to it.”
– Cathy Hopkins
Victoria Verejan, a young ophthalmologist from the Republic of Moldova, shares with us her experiences at the Lions Ophthalmology Educational Center, part of Charles University in Prague. By improving her knowledge and fostering new collaborations, the program Verejan attended has been benefiting YOs from East Europe since 2002.
Anthony Khawaja, MB BS, MA(Cantab), MPhil, FRCOphth
Chair of the SOE Young Ophthalmologists committee
I am a young doctor from the Republic of Moldova. I work as an ophthalmologist for children in the department of pediatric ophthalmology at the National Mother and Child Health Care Institute. Our department deals with eye diseases in children from 1 month to 18 years of age.
Last February, I had the opportunity to participate in an interesting and practical course in pediatric ophthalmology and neuro-ophthalmology held at the Lions Ophthalmology Educational Center of Charles University in Prague. Since 2002, this beautiful city has been the home of a unique educational project connected with the Lions’ SightFirst program and aimed at training young ophthalmologists of Central and Eastern European countries. The core of the program focuses on the causes of avoidable vision impairment, with a special focus on public health care services. Students are selected in their home countries and have the chance to attend the course for free, paying only for their travel expenses.
When I arrived in Prague, I was astonished by the beauty of the old town, with fascinating streetscapes and views, spellbinding architecture, characteristic taverns and countless places of cultural interest. The course itself was remarkably well organized. It was a 2-day full immersion, starting early in the morning and finishing at 5 p.m. to allow us time to visit the city. It was a great privilege to attend the lectures of Klara Landau, MD, and Christina Gerth-Kahlert, MD. They were thorough and delivered a wealth of transferrable, practical information that I used a lot in my practice after returning home. The interactive teaching methods of our lecturers gave us the opportunity not just to listen but also to ask questions, present our cases, discuss and come home with convincing answers.
Course participants came from many different countries, and this was a further asset because we had the opportunity to exchange interesting information, compare systems and solutions, and learn from each other’s experience. To us, as young doctors, all this is invaluable. The beginning of our profession is challenging, and whenever we deal with something new, we have to cope with a lot of anxiety, lack of self-confidence and uncertainty of the results. The chance to talk with colleagues who share the same feelings and problems, to exchange information and experiences, comes as a safety net and has the immediate effect of making us feel safer and more confident, more sure that we can make it. Another aspect that I appreciated was the encouragement of the course-organizing committee to continue working hard and apply for scholarships and grants. We were told that the entire creation of this course started from just one application that gave the impulse to translate ideas into action. We were encouraged to do the same and to start changing something in our countries, too.
It was such an insight for me. I realized that often we do not move because we expect others to take the lead and get things started. We should instead be the ones who start making the changes and look for help around us.
I gained a lot from this course. First of all, it gave me the opportunity to build up knowledge and skills in my fields of interest. The experiences that our teachers shared turned out to be immensely useful in my day-to-day practice. Last but not least, the experience of meeting young colleagues from different countries and sharing so much with them was not only personally fulfilling and enriching, but professionally useful because we established new collaborations and networks that might lead to interesting developments. I am sure we all went home with a lot of energy and the strong motivation to work toward positive changes.
- For more information:
- Victoria Verejan, MD, can be reached at the Department of Ophthalmology, National Mother and Child Health Care Institute, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova; email: verejan_victoria@yahoo.com.
- SOE Young Ophthalmologists website: http://soevision.org/yo
Disclosure: No products or companies that would require financial disclosure are mentioned in this article.