Eyeworld

61 EW IN OTHER NEWS by Ellen Stodola EyeWorld Senior Staff Writer/Digital Editor Terebuh said. "No matter how tired I was before starting a class, I'd be completely rejuvenated by the end." Dr. Terebuh was featured in another way in her hometown, this time for painting, something she noted is much more a talent of her mother's than hers. "I'm not a painter at all," she said. "It's my mom who's the artist." Her mother is from the Neth- erlands, and her father is from Croatia. They met in the Nether- lands after he escaped as a political refugee. He finished medical school in the Netherlands, met her mother, and they moved to the U.S., where she was born. "My mom was a medical technologist by training but start- ed to dabble in art when we were little," she said. While Dr. Terebuh was growing up, her mother went to nursing school and assisted her father in surgery in his ophthal- mology practice. Once her children were grown, she started to paint. Dr. Terebuh noted that both her and her mother's houses are filled with paintings. Dr. Terebuh's ophthal- mology office is also full of her mother's artwork. Several years ago, the art league in her town was having an event for charity that Dr. Terebuh was asked to participate in. "We were asked to do a painting and have it auctioned off," she said. "When my mom asked me to do this, I was hesitant because I thought I wasn't good," Dr. Terebuh said. Despite her self-proclaimed lack of artistic ability, Dr. Terebuh said that one type of art that she excels at is drawing the optic nerve. "Every time I dilate a patient, I draw the optic nerve," she said. In addition to using OCT and fundus photography Ophthalmologist's artistic pursuits are varied and fulfilling June 2018 Dr. Terebuh practicing ballet at the Detwiler School of Dance in her hometown. continued on page 62 Dr. Terebuh shares her love for ballet and talent for drawing the optic nerve A nnette Terebuh, MD, Bellefontaine, Ohio, didn't always know that she would be an ophthal- mologist. In fact, she had planned to be a ballerina. Dr. Terebuh began ballet danc- ing was she was just 3 years old, and she would practice almost every day. However, after her junior year of high school she realized that she wanted to take a different path. She spent a summer at ballet school in Croatia, dancing for 8 hours a day. Though Dr. Terebuh said she was great at ballet, especially among those in her small town, she realized she wouldn't be the best on a bigger stage. She decided to focus her pursuits on medicine. Though her father was also an ophthalmologist, she initially thought she might pursue a different specialty. Despite being interested in obstetrics, Dr. Terebuh said she found it hard to handle the complications that could arise in those cases. She was also interested in orthopedics but noted that she found it hard when limbs were out of place. Then she started thinking that she would in fact go into ophthalmology. After practicing ophthalmol- ogy in Philadelphia for a number of years, Dr. Terebuh returned to her hometown to practice with her father. It was then that she decid- ed to take up ballet again. After enrolling her daughter at the same ballet school that she had previously studied at with the same teacher, her teacher suggested that she may also want to start classes again. "Ballet was my first love," Dr. Terebuh said, noting that it helps teach discipline. Dr. Terebuh said her ballet teacher retired a couple of years ago, so she has not recently been taking classes but expressed interest in taking it up again. "At the end of the day, I couldn't wait to go to my class," Dr.

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