EyeWorld is the official news magazine of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
Issue link: https://digital.eyeworld.org/i/78712
April 2012 EWInternational 29 These are challenges that now peo- ple are interested in [learning] about. I don't think people are inter- ested in [learning] how to do phaco surgery because everyone knows. Cost is a big issue. We have Medicare in India. In the United States there are problems with billing. We have the same problems. We are looking at femtosecond cataract surgery and will be using one of these machines at the begin- ning of April. EW Editors' note: Drs. Ramamurthy, Agarwal, and Mohan have no financial interests related to this article. Contact information: Agarwal: dragarwal@vsnl.com Mohan: rajaneye@md2.vsnl.net.in Ramamurthy: drramamurthy@theeyefoundation.com Sujatha Mohan, M.D., associate medical director, Rajan Eye Care Hospital, Chennai, India We basically use a hub and spoke model at our center. There are small clinics with four big centers as the hubs. I think [this works because] most of our patients are not able to travel long distances. Now, with every metropolis, getting from point A to Z takes a long time. Patients are very happy to go to one of [the smaller clinics] where we try to make it a point to visit once a week, and we have well-trained consultants. I think the basic thing for every cataract surgeon would be to up- grade [to] a better machine. We started with the lowest-end ma- chine. We switched eventually, up and up, to Stellaris. When you up- grade, you provide the best for pa- tients. Also, once you do that, automatically you will get patients. When you perform a good serv- ice and achieve good quality of vi- sion, safe surgery, faster surgery, earlier ambulation, and very little hospital time, [this all helps]. Word of mouth [recommendation] is bet- ter than advertising. Wherever you are—India or Africa—it doesn't mat- ter. There are [eye doctors] who have started in practice at the same time as us who have not bothered to up- grade. They have been left behind. Among the types of cataracts we get, some are rock hard and black. So our proficiency is often superior to our Western counterparts. The number of surgeries we perform is [greater]. It's a pleasure to operate. OPHTHALMOLOGY Inpatient and outpatient care for medically complex patients t .PSF UIBO BDUJWF HSBOUT t .PSF UIBO 0QIUIBMNPMPHJTUT BOE 0QUPNFUSJTUT t .PSF UIBO QBUJFOU WJTJUT BOOVBMMZ Please visit with us at www.mayoclinic.org MC1239-11