Ophthalmologists in Myanmar (also known as Burma), recently received their first modern medical eye education in decades from a delegation of nine renowned U.S. eye specialists, including Penny Asbell, MD, MBA, Director of Cornea and Refractive Services and Director of the Cornea Fellowship Program in the Department of Ophthalmology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Dr. Asbell lectured fifty Burmese ophthalmology students and practicing ophthalmologists on ocular allergy, dry eyes, general corneal transplant surgery, and a specialized corneal transplant surgery known as Descemet’s Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSAEK). In addition, she treated roughly 36 patients presenting difficult cornea cases during the four-day Myanmar Eye Meeting, conducted by the Hawaiian Eye Foundation in partnership with Yangon Eye Hospital.
The Southeast Asian nation, which recently embraced democracy, has one cornea specialist serving a population of 60 million people. The waiting list to receive a cornea transplant currently stands at 3,000 patients.
There is even a greater need for cataract surgery, with 600,000 people on the waiting list and approximately 175 physicians—out of the country’s total of 350 eye doctors—who are trained to perform eye surgery.
“There’s a lot of need and a lot of patients who have to get by with a little less intervention,” Dr. Asbell says. Eye doctors in Myanmar possess very good general medical knowledge but do not have specialty training, she adds. Among a range of new techniques, Dr. Asbell taught the doctors how to use discarded amniotic membrane tissue and close the eye to help heal eye injuries and infections. Eye complications are relatively common in Myanmar, a mainly rural nation where most people earn their livelihoods from agricultural work.
Dr. Asbell is helping the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai and the Hawaiian Eye Foundation organize another trip to Myanmar that will likely take place next year.
“Now that we know each other, we expect even greater interactive teaching this time,” she says. “We all grow from these experiences.”