Eye to Eye: An Ophthalmology Podcast from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists

In this episode we talk with Simerdip Kaur, an Ophthalmology trainee from the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Deanery. She provides an in-depth overview of the most commonly used herbal remedies in Ophthalmology and summarises the evidence behind the claims we often hear from patients.

In this episode we speak with Samantha Hunt, an Ophthalmology registrar who works at the Bristol Eye Hospital. We discuss the topic of regional funding variations in Ophthalmology and hear about her paper which investigated the variations in policy from CCGs across the country with regards to how they fund oculoplastic procedures.

In this episode with speak with Mr. Saurabh Jain, a Consultant Ophthalmologist as well as the Training Programme Director for North London and the Clinical Lead for Ophthalmology for the Royal Free Hospital in London. We discuss his experience of coming to the UK, the level of diversity in Ophthalmology in the UK and what needs to be done to improve equality and diversity within our specialty and medicine in general.

In this episode we speak with Yu Jeat, an ST6 Trainee from the West-Midlands Deanery and Kate Silvester, a healthcare systems engineer on how to apply the principles of quality improvement to enact change in a hospital eye service. We discuss specific examples of changes that have been made in light of COVID-19. Both Yu Jeat and Kate Silvester would be happy to be contacted for advice on this topic, their contacts are Yu.Chong.2@city.ac.uk and Kate@katesilvester.co.uk respectively. The link to the Foundation of Improvement Science in Healthcare (FISH) Course: https://www.saasoft.co.uk/fish/course/ and https://www.improvementscience.co.uk

In this episode we talk to Marina Roizenblatt, a vitreoretinal surgeon from São Paulo, Brazil about her paper which investigated the effect of caffeine and propranolol on the surgical performance of vitreoretinal fellows using the EyeSi surgical simulator.

In this episode we hear from Mariantonia Ferrara a Medical and Surgical Retina Fellow from Newcastle and Kerr Brogan, a Glaucoma Fellow from Glasgow, about the results from surveys that they conducted during the pandemic that investigated the impact of COVID-19 on Ophthalmologists in Training. Varo Kirthi, the Chair of the Ophthalmologists in Training Group (OTG) then shares with us an overview of the role of the OTG and its importance during these challenging times.

In this episode we hear from Nimish Shah, the regional diabetic screening lead for Bath and North East Somerset. He talks to us about how COVID-19 affected the running of the diabetic screening service.

In this episode we hear from Vidushi Golash, a trainee from the Kent, Surrey and Sussex deanery about her experiences of setting up and running virtual consultations for Oculoplastics patients.

In this episode we hear from Nada Burgess, a trainee from West-Midlands who shares her highly personal experience of suffering from PTSD following being deployed during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode we spoke with Helen Devonport, a Consultant Ophthalmologist from Bradford who shared her experience of how the COVID-19 crisis affected her medical retina service and the steps taken to ensure patients were kept safe.