Corina Taban, Emergency Eye Hospital and Clinic, Bucharest, Romania _ Grant placement report

Author: Corina Taban, Emergency Eye Hospital and Clinic, Bucharest, Romania

Visited :Neuro-ophthalmology Department, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham
Ophthalmology – University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, UK
August 2015

I have an interest in Neuro-ophthalmology and thus was keen on finding a training centre that would have this subspecialty. Although not listed on the official SOE list of Ophthalmic Centers,  the Academic Unit of Ophthalmology Birmingham & Midland Eye Centre has a has a link to the Neuro-ophthalmology Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, where I spent 4 weeks, primarily attached to the Neuro-ophthalmology team under the supervision of Mr Tim Matthews.

I felt warmly welcome by all the Neuro-ophthalmology team and the staff I came across.

Mr Matthews planned my rotations according to my interests, guided me in correctly assessing the pathology at hand and encouraged me in joining the other members of the Neuro-ophthalmology department who shared their knowledge and skills, often at the cost of their spare time.

As I attended Clinics with different Consultants, Registrars and Fellows at the QEH, I was given the opportunity to see different approaches to the same pathology  and get a balanced insight of the management of some pathologies I rarely come across at my home unit.

Furthermore, Mr Matthews also provided me early on with a large array of study materials to help me understand what I was seeing every day in the Clinic and gave me several useful guidelines to take back home with me.

In addition, I was also able to extend my knowledge and skills by attending joint neurology and Neuro-ophthalmology clinics and Neuro-vascular, Pituitary and Skull Base MDT meetings.

I also gained some insight into the work of the Orthoptics department and attended various Neuro-radiology and Neuro-ophthalmology teaching sessions which were extremely useful.

Throughout my observer ship I attended not only Neuro-ophthalmology Clinics, but also theater sessions, MDT meetings, imaging symposia and teaching sessions.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mr Matthews and to all the members of the Neuro-ophthalmology Department who guided me throughout my Observership. Many thanks to the members of the Orthoptics and the Neuro-radiology Department who were very patient in sharing their knowledge with me.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the European Society of Ophthalmology, for awarding me the SOE Educational Grant which gave me the opportunity to visit one of the UK’s best Neuro-ophthalmologic training centres.

I would highly recommend the QEH to the future SOE Grant winners.