key: cord-0981566-6oieldan
authors: Anitha, Venugopal; Ravindran, Meenakshi
title: A novel eyeball simulator for training postgraduate students during pandemic times
date: 2021-10-03
journal: Indian J Ophthalmol
DOI: 10.4103/ijo.ijo_2013_21
sha: 05c2fa74dc77c5e44296712008e3549bd444d6f1
doc_id: 981566
cord_uid: 6oieldan

nan

Dear Editor, During the COVID-19 pandemic era, the eye banks faced significant turmoil all over India with a reduced number of corneal retrievals for corneal transplants. [1] Unfortunately, the postgraduate trainees and those doing fellowship programs in cataract and cornea surgeries were more affected due to a shortage of training eyeballs. [2] [3] [4] [5] Mishra et al. [3] had conducted a survey for residents and fellows and assessed the impact of COVID-19 on their training programs and found that their learning and surgical skills were affected adversely. Experts conducted online continuing medical education, but the methods to improve surgical skills could not be followed perpetually due to inadequate eyeball in the wet labs. [2] To combat this issue, we propose a novel idea of using "Aurosphere"-an Aurolab product used for enucleation and evisceration procedures as a prosthesis and alternative for surgical wet lab practice. It is spherical, made of polysiloxane material, a human-made elastomer with elastic properties. This "Aurosphere" was used as an eyeball simulator for wet lab Small incision cataract surgery (SICS) tunnel making and suturing practice for novice surgeons. Since there is a large surface area, the sphere can be turned around, and the tunnel practicing can be done all around the sphere repeatedly [ Fig. 1a] . The same tunnel can be sutured using the 10-0 nylon suture material [ Fig. 1b] easily with a similar impression of the sclera. For practicing keratoplasty sutures, trephines can be used to punch the sphere easily [ Fig. 2] , and suturing can be practiced by fixing the sphere to the reverse side of the unsterile Femto Lasik suction rings by creating a vacuum with the inbuilt suction syringe of the Femto unit [ Fig. 1c ]. The SICS tunnel practice can be done ably in the Slit lamp by fixing it with a nondominant hand and using an unsterile crescent knife, and thereby tunneling can be practiced with the dominant hand. In addition, it avoids the putrid smell of the Goat's eye, used for training. We know that there is no substitute for learning and performing surgical procedures in real life. [4] Still, our novel discovery will permit the uninterrupted practice of the most limiting step of manual SICS procedure, tunnel making, and the suturing for keratoplasty during crises. 

All India Ophthalmological Society -Eye Bank Association of India consensus statement on guidelines for cornea and eyebanking during COVID-19 era

Academic Ophthalmology during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

The impact of COVID-19 related lockdown on ophthalmology training programs in India -Outcomes of a survey

Reshaping ophthalmology training after COVID-19 pandemic

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on infectious keratitis outcomes: A retrospective multicenter study in tertiary eye hospitals of South India

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.Cite this article as: Anitha V, Ravindran M. A novel eyeball simulator for training postgraduate students during pandemic times. Indian J Ophthalmol 2021;69:2879-80.