Orbis Canada Board Member Takes Part in Flying Eye Hospital Program

The project, in collaboration with local partner hospital, Chittagong Eye Infirmary and Training Complex (CEITC), was the Flying Eye Hospital’s 11^th sight-saving visit to the country and Geoffrion’s first time volunteering on the plane.

“The purpose of the project for Orbis was to deliver high-quality training, education, and surgical care to the local populations in Bangladesh, all while teaching ophthalmologists there locally,” she says. Geoffrion was one of two residents participating alongside three surgeons. She and her fellow associate ophthalmologist assisted in teaching local surgeons a newer cataract technique called phacoemulsification. This process requires a specialized machine, which is now available at the community hospital.

Using a virtual reality simulator, Geoffrion was able to teach participants how to operate the machine and the steps to the surgery. She was able to walk the trainees through the process and to share techniques to manage complications that might arise.

This was Geoffrion’s first experience doing global health work, something she has aspired to do for many years. “I was so excited when Orbis gave me the chance to go to Bangladesh and contribute to their mission of improving teaching, education, and surgical care internationally.”

While her work was primarily done at the local hospital in Chittagong, where there was a lab set up for the training, on the final day of the program, she was able to participate in the activities on the Flying Eye Hospital itself. “The plane was on the tarmac where our flight within Bangladesh had landed only a few days ago,” she says, noting how meaningful it was to tour the plane and see a surgery taking place on board.

“It's like nothing you've ever seen before,” she says of the experience on the plane. “You have the ophthalmologists, the Flying Eye Hospital personnel, the nurses, the anaesthesiologists, all working together. And it's a perfectly planned choreography that happens every day. You could see how well everyone works together and how perfectly set up the plane is.”

The Orbis staff and those from the local hospital were welcoming of all of the residents and early-career ophthalmologists participating in the program. She found the mentorship she received throughout the program to be helpful, and she also enjoyed working with the six trainees assigned to her team and getting to see their progress over the course of the week.

Geoffrion herself received a certificate from Orbis at the end of the program to acknowledge the work she did as part of the training. She now proudly displays it in her office alongside her model of the Flying Eye Hospital, and a mini rickshaw model she was gifted by her trainees. Her hope is to continue to work with Orbis and in the field of global ophthalmology.