Medical mission as student sparked doctor's regional outreach for eye care

Anna Tan now heads Singapore National Eye Centre's Global Eye Health efforts

- Zhaki Abdullah Correspondent

The SNEC's Global Eye Health team performing cataract surgery on patients at Laos' National Ophthalmology Centre.

(SINGAPORE NATIONAL EYE CENTRE)

At the age of 23, medical student Anna Tan travelled to eye centres in the rural south of the Philippines to service the ophthalmic microscopes used by surgeons during intricate eye procedures.

Along the way, the University of Melbourne student learnt from ophthalmologists there, and discovered more about eye care in regions such as Cebu, Davao and Mindanao.

The trip came about thanks to a scholarship by the Christian Blind Mission, a charity based in Britain that was offering students a chance to learn how to service and clean portable ophthalmic microscopes for cataract surgery.

"Hence, this trip was my inspiration and enabler for me to start my career," said Clinical Associate Professor Tan, now deputy head of the medical retina department at the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC).

It was her first exposure to medical outreach work, she recalled, adding that a survey she conducted on how microscope services could be improved in these regions allowed her to publish her first ophthalmology peer-reviewed publication.

This, in turn, helped her get into the very competitive ophthalmology residency programme at SNEC.