Hospital Welcomes Eminent Volunteer

At the beginning of May this year, the St John Eye Hospital, Jerusalem was most grateful to consultant ophthalmic surgeon Mr Tony Tyers, who visited the hospital for 10 days to volunteer his considerable skills.

Based in Salisbury, Mr Tyers trained at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and has done fellowships in ophthalmic plastic surgery in Boston, Amsterdam and at Moorfields. He is Past President of the British Oculo-Plastic Surgery Society and President Elect of the European Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Whilst at the Hospital in May, Mr Tyers held two clinics at Jerusalem and one at Anabta.  He performed 25 surgeries. 

What follows is a short, informal report by Mr Tyers describing his stay at the Hospital:

As always the welcome at St John was second to none. The barbeque on Thursday and the final meal in theatre on Friday were simply very generous and very much appreciated.

The programme was good. I had a lot of work both in the clinics (51 patients in Anabta this time) and in theatre. The pattern of bookings seems to work well: any patients I see who could have surgery with Bashir Shaheen I leave for him to do after my visit but other patients with more complex problems who I think he would appreciate help with I do. I have offered to help him with any patients he would like to do himself but with whom he would like some help. In addition, he has brought a few patients to the clinic for an opinion. 

There is occasionally a small problem with notes availability between the 3 St John sites - sometimes the SJEH notes are not available for someone seen, for example, in Hebron; or Anabta notes may occasionally not be available for subsequent surgery at SJEH. This is not a major problem. However, it can be difficult recalling the clinical details. The same thing can happen with peripheral clinics in the UK. There's no easy answer and I think the routines in place at St John work very well most of the time.

The staff have been superb as usual. Every person who has helped has been pleasant, competent and efficient, both in the clinics and in theatre. The residents are interested and friendly - they want to learn. The other consultants and the orthoptists are always very helpful and take a real interest in all patients. The clinical meeting on Wednesday morning was good and I hope we can bring some oculoplastic patients to it in future.

The accommodation is excellent. Comfortable, spacious and self contained.

This brings me to all those who have anything to do with the organisation - including the London Office. Everything has been organised extremely well and nothing was left for me to worry about! It makes a huge difference to know that we, as visitors, can just get on with the job and not be bothered by odd admin problems. So thank you very much for another extremely enjoyable visit!

Medical volunteers including doctors, ophthalmic nurses and orthoptists, have a vital part to play in the life of the Hospital. They can provide surgical expertise, work with outpatients at our clinics, assist the outreach teams and teach and train our local staff.

If you are interested in becoming a medical volunteer at our Hospital in Jerusalem or on outreach work in Gaza and Hebron, please contact The Order Hospitaller at John [dot] Talbot [at] stjohneyehospital [dot] org