Common tips for trainees at young ophthalmologists programme

The Young Ophthalmologists Programme at the 21st ESCRS Winter Meeting in Maastricht, The Netherlands, was well attended, attesting to the interest of early-career surgeons in continuing their cataract surgery education outside the operating theatre. Richard Packard MD, UK, opened the proceedings with a presentation entitled ‘The most common tips I give to my trainees’. Dr Packard walked delegates through each step of cataract surgery, giving them his time-honoured advice on how to conquer the trickiest moments. He first demonstrated his “Packard C” technique for performing a consistent capsulorhexis. “Imagine that you are always sitting at 12 o’clock, regardless of whether your approach is temporal or superior, and keep the clock hours in your mind’s eye” he said. Dr Packard said that the technique works well even when you cannot see the tearing edge of the capsulorhexis, for example when the pupil is smaller than the rhexis. Dr Packard’s tips for hydrodissection included injecting smoothly and pressing the nucleus backwards and across at the opposite pole from the injection of fluid. “When rotating the nucleus, change your hand position to hold the syringe like a pencil to rotate the nucleus, which will give the correct force vector,” he said. A particularly interesting tip was how to avoid the painful and surgically inconvenient lens iris diaphragm retropulsion syndrome, which is common in post-vitrectomy and highly myopic eyes. For more information on this technique, Dr Packard referred delegates to an article that he published in JCRS in 2010. ENDS