Welcome to Ulaanbaatar

We had a great first day in Ulaanbaatar at the First National Hospital, which is a public, state-run hospital at the city center. We met with representatives from the ophthalmology service (which I can’t help but mention is run primarily by women!) and got started right away seeing patients. We saw over 50 pre-screened patients that our Mongolian colleagues had specially selected for our evaluation. Among these 50 patients were a great number with corneal blindness who need corneal transplants, including some who were, sadly, blind in both eyes. The patients were so grateful we had come, many having traveled from the countryside just to get our opinion on their eye condition. Some patients were candidates for other types of surgery that we are not equipped to perform on this trip; and now we feel an obligation to return to teach other types of surgery in the future.

It is interesting to compare the variety and distribution of eye disease seen in different parts of the world with what we see in our clinic back home. Our Mongolian counterparts had things to teach us as well about diseases we never see in the United States. We discussed all the patients and reviewed the diagnosis and treatment options with the ophthalmologists here. At times there were almost 20 people crammed into a tiny exam room, eager to hear our recommendations. We offered advice in medical management in those cases where surgery was not required. We realized there is a dire need for much more help here in the realm of eye care, including medical contact lens fitting, access to glaucoma valves and drops, neuro-ophthalmology and retina surgery in addition to cornea surgery.

We will now have the difficult task of selecting those in greatest need to use our limited number of precious corneas. Before we left for the day, we laid the groundwork for our week-long program, which will include teaching in the operating room to train future corneal surgeons and didactic lectures for the wider audience of eye care specialists from around the country. There are two cornea specialists in the entire country of Mongolia and neither is able to perform corneal transplants because of the lack of donor tissue. We started discussions about how Mongolia could potentially supply corneas to these surgeons, as well as the ones we will train this week. This is no simple undertaking, but we don’t believe it is impossible.

We want to thank all of our partners who made this work possible:
The Virtue Foundation
SightLife Eye Bank
See international
Alcon
Karl Storz
Katena
Moria
Samsonite