Dear friends,
Its a great day for YOSI to collaborate with Ophthalmology Network to share cases with world`s top ophthalmologists. I am happy to share with you three
interesting incidences in my life that led to creation of Young Ophthalmologists Society of India. Hope you will be able to connect to them.
My utmost love for Conferences: My first desire to attend a
conference was associated with the opportunity to travel to distant lands and have
fun. Frankly speaking at that time there was not much interest in presenting
scientific work. I wished that my presentation would be selected as a poster rather
than paper so that I would not have to speak in front of a highly experienced
crowd. Therefore I started collecting data from clinics right in the very first
year of my post-graduation. With the kind support of my faculty, I was able to
write my first abstract and sent it to Association of Research in Vision and
Ophthalmology (ARVO) in Florida. Little did I know about the level of this
meeting, all I could imagine was Miami beaches. A few months later when the
dreams had started to become distant, suddenly I saw acceptance letter in my
email. I had also been selected amongst the young researchers for a travel
grant. I was extremely elated, the dreams of white beaches and Universal
studios were back and planning started in full action. In all this excitement,
I didn’t even realize that the abstract had been selected for paper presentation
instead of poster. This would however prove to be a big mistake.
A week before the dates of the
conference as I opened up the acceptance letter to see my poster stand number
and guidelines, all I could see was a hall number and time slot. I was quite
perplexed and nervous at the same time. Simultaneously I got a call from my
faculty In-charge to show the presentation. My faculty explained how a paper
presentation at ARVO was a very rare opportunity. However due to shortage of
time I could not finalize the presentation while in India. As I had a few days
in US before my presentation day, I thought it would be a good buffer. Finally
I landed in Florida, still nervous from my incomplete work. I decide to finish
it before I could realize my dreams of white sand beaches. To my utter
disbelief I realized that I couldn’t plug the laptop charger into the socket.
So here starts my American expedition, travelling in highly expensive cabs with
a cable cord in my hands, trying to explain storeowners what I needed. Time and
money both were running out and soon I realized that buying a laptop was surprisingly
a cheaper option. I got the cheapest HP laptop from a nearby store. All excited
to finally complete my work, soon realized that it had no MS office. Went back
and purchased original MS Office. Yes it’s a big deal. I am sure many will
understand. Finally after exhausting two days, my presentation was somewhat
ready. I reached the venue and was spell bound to see the sheer size of the
same. Even more interesting were the delegates who had arrived in shorts, and
were seriously scribbling on their notepads even while walking. Suddenly it hit
me what I had landed myself into. When my session started with around 500
people in the audience, I almost felt like running away. As I had to take the
ARVO travel grant money, I recollected some strength and presented with slight confidence
in the crowd. Although I got a good applause from everyone, the few questions
still seemed like bouncers to me. Anyways
it was done, I folded my laptop, took my grant money and left the venue as
quickly as possible. After that I had a few days to realize my dreams of white
sand beaches.
That was
2011, and now in 2015 after having attended numerous international and national
conferences, I am totally a changed person. I went to Asia Pacific Academy of
Ophthalmology (APAO) conference at Guangzhou, China. I was again lucky to
receive a grant from them. I had one free paper, three posters, and three
videos. All seven were ready a week before the conference. I had looked up at the
abstract book and marked all the sessions I had to attend in the five days. As
I am undergoing corneal training most of them were related to lamellar
surgeries and ocular surface. I had also marked sessions of few stalwarts whom
I wanted to listen and meet if possible. I not only attended the pre-meeting
special sessions but was also amongst the last delegates to leave the venue.
Oh, don’t be under the impression that I didn’t explore anything outside venue.
Luckily met some amazing YOs, had a great time with them including cycling, shopping
and partying. And yes I carried my laptop cable connector with me this time.
And no the HP laptop is no more in this world, it came into this world for a
purpose.
Failures can be our biggest strengths: I do not intend to be a
philosopher here as I am certainly too young for that. But what I have realized
is that when most of the people see the top achievers in any field, they never
realize the pain, hardships and failure they had to undergo. How many of us
know that Steve Jobs, founder of apple was on the verge of bankruptcy multiple
number of times and he was thrown out of his own company at one point of time.
The point I am trying to make to
all YOs is very simple. Do not underestimate your potential because you had
failures in your life. Do not think you cant be Steve Jobs or any other person
you aspire because you failed miserably at some point of time. Everyone fails
invariably, but only those who rise up beyond failures achieve their dreams. It
is human nature to highlight success more than their failures. This may give a sense
of inferiority complex to others at times. I will give personal example from my
own life, as it is my diary. I was recently listed in `Top 40 under 40
ophthalmologists power list’ by The Ophthalmologist magazine. Almost everyone I
meet knows about that. All blame goes to social media. Meanwhile, how many of
you know that I could not get senior residency seat in first attempt?
Simultaneously, I was also denied fellowship at a prestigious institute. No,
you would not know. But yes these things didn’t bother me a bit. I knew my love
for ophthalmology would take me ahead irrespective of the obstacles. And today
I am happy, yet not immune from any failures. Determined to rise beyond any
failure, much more mature and experienced.
Interaction with YOs: And lastly I would write briefly
about the subject closest to my heart. I started Young Ophthalmologists Society
of India (YOSI) 2 years back. Lot of people including YOs still does not
understand the reason. So I will take you back to the time when it was not
there. When I joined ophthalmology back in 2010 at RPC as a post-graduate
student, it took very little time to realize that I was extremely lucky. My
colleagues from under-graduation who joined different colleges and were
pursuing ophthalmology gave me a very dismal picture of the facilities and
academic teaching at their respective institutes. When one of my friends told
me that there was a single slit lamp in her institute that was locked in the
room of HOD, I was deeply saddened. Not only that, I realized the poor surgical
teaching and lack of career guidance to YOs at these places. Given such
circumstances, the YOs could never rise to their full potential and what would
happen to their patients was like a nightmare.
With a dream to share resources and
providing equality in learning opportunities amongst the YOs, I started Young
Ophthalmologist Society of India (YOSI) in 2013. Its website www.yosi.in was launched simultaneously. The
core purpose of YOSI has been to address the educational needs of younger or
new to practice ophthalmologists and communicating their concerns to the higher
leadership. As I am actively working with DOS, we brought some attention to the
specific need of YOs and hence started YO sessions in its annual conferences. I was extremely happy to see YO sessions subsequently
being held in various meetings of the country. I also became a part of AIOS membership drive
and its committee agreed to reduce the conference registration and lifetime membership
fees for YOs. Hence I tried to communicate YO`s concerns to larger
organizations through YOSI.
Lots of people ask me the age limit
for YOSI and tell me amusingly that they are still young by heart. So can they
be a part of this organization? My answer is quite simple. Our major focus of efforts
is directed toward residency, fellowship, and the first five years of practice.
If you can help in these efforts you are more than welcome to join YOSI. Today
lots of senior ophthalmologists, who are working for the interest of YOs are a
part of YOSI as YO Mentors.
YOSI started as an online facebook
based portal where all YOs could share clinical cases, surgical videos, latest
research and conference updates. Somehow I felt YOs were more comfortable
posting in this forum as they were not judged by senior doctors. Today we are
close to 1550 members on this forum sharing knowledge across India and abroad.
Joined rapidly by a team of YOs
sharing similar enthusiasm, I started YO Times, a three monthly magazine that published
articles specific to the needs of the YOs. We have already published 7 issues
and eighth one is already in process. YO times features special interview of the
pioneers in ophthalmology, sharing moments of success and struggles in their
journey so far. It also features YO diary, quiz, latest articles and photo
collage. It is available only online at our website and hence no paper is
printed. Totally environment friendly.
Next additions to our platform were
YO Central, YO Social and YO assist. YO central is a dropbox application for
sharing free resources like ebooks, presentations and videos amongst YOs.
Whereas YO social caters to spreading awareness for better eye care through
social media. YO assist provides free publications to YOs and also helps in
initial years of private practice.
Realizing limited time for
interactive YO sessions in larger conferences, YOSI had organized its first
Young Eye Surgeon (YES) meet on 2nd august, 2015 in Delhi. Its theme
was ` Lets make better mistakes tomorrow’. It’s a platform where YOs brought
out their mistakes in cataract surgery while YO mentors discussed the solutions
and improvements over their techniques.
You will be amazed to know that all
activities including membership, magazine and meetings of YOSI have been free
till date. YOSI intends to create equal learning opportunities for all YOs, so
as to rise to their true potential My other motive is to unite YOs across India
so that they can help each other in difficult and challenging period of their
life. If that is done, Indian ophthalmology is bound to rise.
So in the end, there are three
things I would like you to take back from this diary: -
· Do become
members of ophthalmic societies early. Attend as many conferences as possible as
they set your concepts right from the very beginning.
· Never lose
hope in times of failure; cause when you will overcome it you will be a much
evolved person.
· Help other
YOs whenever possible. Your helping them is like serving many more patients. That
is a big enough reason.
Regards
Dr Tarun Arora
MD, DNB, FICO
Senior resident
Cornea, cataract and refractive surgery
services
RPC, AIIMS, New Delhi, India
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