Thanks to global health initiatives within the UK College of Medicine, residents and fellows are gaining invaluable experience in dozens of countries – helping thousands of patients while learning unique skills to enhance their practice of medicine.
Katherine McKinney, MD, senior associate dean for graduate medical education, praises her residents’ and fellows’ determination to implement these life-changing experiences into an already challenging training regimen.
“I’m always inspired by the interest that our UK residents and fellows have in global health outreach and travel, and the unique ‘service learning’ that transpires during these trips,” she said. “For those who’ve been able to do so, their consistent feedback has been that the learning and exposure to providing medical care in a different cultural setting yield incredible educational experience well worth figuring out how to make it happen!”
Paras Vora, MD, part of the UK College of Medicine Department of Ophthalmology’s Global Ophthalmology (UK GO) residency track, is just one of many residents who took advantage of opportunities to train and serve abroad.
Dr. Vora’s family is from a small, rural town in India. “You saw some of the worst pathologies,” he said. A visit to his hometown during medical school – seeing doctors perform more than 40 cataract surgeries per day – inspired his interest in ophthalmology. He knew there was a need, and he saw firsthand how he could help others.
“When the patient takes their patch off and they can see again, there’s nothing like that in medicine,” Dr. Vora said. “Still, to this day, I have not found that gratification in anything else.”
While in residency at the UK College of Medicine, he joined ophthalmology faculty member Seema Capoor, MD, and the Hospital de la Familia Foundation for a two-week trip to provide eye care to a community in Guatemala. As a trainee, Dr. Vora provided support for cataract surgeries alongside a full-time attending.
He called the experience a “nice skills transfer,” with the physicians from different countries learning from one another.
For example, in the U.S., the standard practice for cataract surgeries is phacoemulsification, a high-tech process breaking up the eye’s natural lens through small incisions to remove the cataract. Where Dr. Vora was in Guatemala, they used a more manual approach, which requires a larger incision but not a lot of equipment. “It’s ultimately a really helpful technique, especially for long-term cataract patients,” Dr. Vora said. While recovery time is a bit longer for the manual process, the procedures take roughly the same amount of time.
Dr. Vora is continuing his ophthalmology education at the UK College of Medicine, this time through a vitreoretinal surgery fellowship. He said patient interactions during the Guatemala trip mirrored practice in rural areas of Kentucky, where there is also limited access to health care combined with burdening diseases.
“The skills you learn in Guatemala and those sorts of discussions are going to be very similar to when you’re in practice here,” Dr. Vora said. “You have to think clearly and quickly on your feet. How am I going to respect their fears? Their culture? Our part of the world is very distrustful of medicine.”
“We need to understand where they’re coming from, that’s really important.”