The Eyes Have It

For an ophthalmology elective this quarter, we learned about conditions like red eye, glaucoma, etc. The best part was the climax of the course, which was a sheep eye dissection in a microsurgery suite. It was thrilling using a tiny beaver blade to cut around the iris of the eye, then we used a blade to pop the eyeball and all of its juices came out. You have to be a curious little kid sometimes to get through medical school. Then we used the tiniest little silver scoop (it looked like a miniature silver slotted spatula) to scoop out the lens in a surgery for imaginary cataracts. I always thought that the lens looked like a contact lens (concave, clear, hard, etc.), but it was actually just a little lump of clear jelly. I pretended to not be surprised; it's a good skill to learn in medicine, I think. Then we sutured the eye back up using tiny instruments (small, expensive, doll-like instruments) and that was the hardest part. It was so slippery!

Finally, we played with slit lamps in the clinical exam rooms. Ophthalmology is fun!