Ophthalmology

My first posting in phase IIIb.
Basically it's formed by 2 greek words, ophthalmo- means eye and -logy means the study of.
Although it's just the 3rd day of my phase IIIb, I've never feel so busy before for a minor posting.
Perhaps i didnt work as hard in Klang? =p or maybe it could be the holidays.
No matter how minor the posting is, well, we gotta sit for exams, very soon.
This posting will only last for 2 weeks, and in 2 weeks we should be able to master the basics of ophthalmology.
My group's one of the largest. It's bad. Really.
It's just so crowded for all of us to squeeze into a small room.
Even the profs and some drs voice their suprise over the size of our group.
Well, we'll just have to bear with it, till IF there's any rearrangement of groups as all the groups weren't balanced now due to elective schedules.
It's a possibility that the admins will consider says my elective coordinator.
Back to ophthalmology, all the lecturers that I had so far are good. They're really good at teaching. No joke.
Patient and dedicated as well. It's just helps. Indirect motivation.
On the first day itself, I had my first ever on-call =p
It's fun as finally I'm given the chance to insert brannulas and give IV drugs.
Hands on stuff are usually fun. This is just the beginning i suppose. Prolly i'll get bored of it somewhere in the future when it's a routine.
Today just went to the ophthalmo OT. Observed 3 eye surgeries, both which is done by super nice prof choo. 2 of it are cataract surgeries.
Cataract is defined as a complete or partial opacity of the ocular lens.
Both cataract surgeries watched are using phacoemulsification. It's the best technique available so far.
It allows cataract surgeries to be done without the need of suturing the wound. The incision wound is just so tiny, usually will just be left for self healing as long as the wound does not leak out the aqueous (eye fluid).
The bleeding from it is also minimal. Phacoemulsification uses ultrasound to break down the opacified lens of the eye. The lens which are broken down will then be sucked out through the probe which is inserted through the small incision.
A replacement lens is then folded and compressed into a small injector. There's a need to fold/compress it as the incision is just too small for the lens to go through.
The lens will then be injected into the eye and placed accordingly.
After that some cleaning of the eye will be performed, and tadaaaaa...surgery completed. The whole process takes only about 45 minutes to complete done by the very experienced professor.
Oh ya and i forgot to mention the patient is only on local anaesthetics which means the patients are very much aware of what's happening and not sedated.
So their eyeballs are moving here and there at times during the surgery. lol..