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Around the world in 5 days: My personal premium surgeon story
Mitchell A. Jackson, MD, explains the inspiration behind his recent international ophthalmic trips.
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My story begins when I finally could truly understand the account of my father’s visual handicap. When my father was age 8 and living outside Glasgow, Scotland, a local epidemic of bacterial meningitis about 78 years ago took the lives of eight of his best childhood friends, and caused complete deafness in one friend and complete blindness in one eye and partial visual loss in the other eye of my father. He remarkably lived on to survive colon cancer twice and prostate cancer once, and fight Parkinson’s disease for 40 years until it finally took his life 5 years ago. Throughout my father’s life as an established Los Angeles attorney and later a respected judge, he continually raised money for organizations such as Shriners and furthered medical charity achievements by speaking and traveling the world. It is his life story that inspired me to become an ophthalmologist to help find a cure for his visual handicap. Although it has yet to happen, my drive to participate in FDA clinical studies and travel the world to give back charitably continues to date.
My story in ophthalmology begins 28 years ago when I completed my medical/surgical internship and experienced my 3-year residency in ophthalmology at the University of Chicago hospitals. I actually spent two summers doing eye research at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA during my summer breaks while attending medical school. I was fortunate to venture into solo private practice after I completed my training in a then-rural, now-suburban northern town of Chicago. This July, I began my 25th year in solo practice, and I have survived despite the ever-changing landscape of medicine, especially in the cataract and refractive subspecialties over this time period. From day 1, I have always participated in FDA clinical trials — reaching 25 in number now — to help advance our field, and I hope to say I will have some legacy one day when I retire. More importantly, two recent trips abroad have really paved the way for how I want my last decade or so of my career to be shaped.
About a month ago, before departing on my first of two incredible international trips, a 60 Minutes episode aired featuring my friend and colleague Dr. Geoff Tabin, who has essentially devoted his life to helping many thousands of visually handicapped individuals worldwide, with his concentration in Nepal and other nearby parts of the world. Shortly afterward, I did my first around-the-world trip in 5 days to India to participate and speak on laser cataract surgery at the Indian Intraocular Implant and Refractive Surgery Convention in Chennai, India. Visiting Drs. Amar and Ashvin Agarwal’s eye hospital was the highlight to see ahead-of-the-curve cutting-edge anterior segment procedures such as single-pass four-throw pupilloplasty and secondary glued posterior chamber IOL handshake technique. This was the first of two 5-day enlightening international 17,000+ mile trips, each in trying to make a difference as my father taught me years ago.
My most exhilarating experience in my ophthalmic career comes as I am typing this column on my way home from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Just 1 month after my India trip, I ventured to participate in the care of patients as part of the Khmer Sight Foundation. I never realized how emotionally and physically taxing this last trip would be. My 2.5-day experience started with screening up to 300 patients for same-day cataract and pterygium surgeries and future corneal and glaucoma procedures. Two other teams saw hundreds of children with congenital cataracts or glaucoma. The extent of disease seen by my team, which included Dr. Bobby Ang from the Philippines, included no-view black or white cataracts, bifurcated pterygia crossing the visual axis, perforated corneal ulcers, corneal staphylomas, secluded pupils with narrow-angle glaucoma with IOP measuring in the 60 mm Hg range, and many more surprises, all of which are much rarer in my private practice setting.
Khmer Sight Foundation is just one of many international organizations, including the Hawaiian Eye Foundation, that regularly goes to places in Southeast Asia. I encourage my fellow premium channel surgeons to give back at least once in your careers. My entire outlook on what I do on a daily basis for patients will forever be changed in a positive manner. I know my father is smiling somewhere.
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- Mitchell A. Jackson, MD, can be reached at Jacksoneye, 300 N. Milwaukee Ave., Suite L, Lake Villa, IL 60046; email: mjlaserdoc@msn.com.
Disclosure: Jackson reports no relevant financial disclosures.