If You're Going For A Short Phaco Course, Read This First.

Actually, read this first.

The Best Phaco Fellowship in India

Because you need to understand what short term phaco training can (and cannot) do for your long term surgical growth.

Now, if you’ve decided to go ahead with a short phaco course, there’s one detail many trainees commonly miss.

What type of incision are they training you in?

Short-term phaco programs train through either

• Clear corneal incision

• Sclero-corneal / scleral tunnel incision

They are not the same.

Thing is, modern phaco is built around clear corneal incision.

That’s the standard in most setups.

The whole point of phaco was smaller incisions.

So why do some programs still train through scleral tunnels?

Usually because they’re implanting rigid IOLs, which require larger wounds.

This often happens in camp patients who cannot opt for foldable lenses.

That's fine for serving camp patients.

But it cannot become the reason to train surgeons using tunnel incisions.

Some hospitals might say, we’ll start with scleral tunnel and later transition you to clear corneal.

Then you should ask one question.

How many actual clear corneal cases will you get before the course ends?

If most of your course is spent doing scleral tunnel phaco and clear corneal exposure is minimal, it's not worth your time and money.

When you apply to hospitals later, they will want clear corneal surgeons who can implant foldable lenses.

Also, most, if not all, short phaco courses start with the divide and conquer technique. Some courses may graduate you into the stop and chop method towards the last few cases or they may train you in stop and chop from the beginning.

As a beginner, it's good to do more of divide and conquer since it gives you a feel for how deep a cataract really is and how the phaco dynamics play when operating.

So before paying for any short term phaco course, ask

• Clear corneal or scleral tunnel?

• How many cases of each?

• Foldable or rigid IOLs?

Most short term phaco courses train you in clear corneal incision and in implanting foldable lenses.

Best not to opt for programs that don't give you both.