Mangaluru Ophthalmologist Dr Atul Kamath bags European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons Trainee Bursary Award

Mangaluru: Dr Atul Kamath, an ophthalmologist at Yenepoya Medical College and Hospital, Derlakatte, Mangaluru has bagged the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) Trainee Bursary Award for drawing attention to the necessity of training ICU nursing staff to prevent eye morbidity.

He presented the study, “Impact of Ocular Care Training of Nursing Staff on Incidence of Ocular Surface Disorder among Intensive Care Patients” at the 41st Congress of the ESCRS, held from 8-12 September 2023 in Vienna-Austria.

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Upon his great victory, Dr. Atul stated, “I am a keen learner, and I am extremely thankful to my mentors for guiding me every day. Being from a developing country, I aim at providing state-of-the-art management and care cost-effectively in the field of cataract & ocular trauma."

Speaking to Team Mangalorean, Dr Atul said, “Ophthalmologists from all over the world applied and participated in this conference and this year about 20,000 experts with 15,000 ophthalmologists and 5,000 allied health staff participated. The study was undertaken along with my wife Dr Aditi Pai, also an ophthalmologist, and under the guidance of Dr Indravan Vasava, Assistant Professor, Baroda Medical College and Sir SayajiRao Hospital, Vadodara. The study was undertaken during the second wave of COVID-19 when hospitals were seeing a high rate of ICU admissions and patients were ventilated and comatose."

The doctor noticed that most patients suffer from problems like Lagophthalmos in which people struggle to close their eyelids thus they develop exposure to Keratitis, one kind of inflammation of the cornea. This can lead to permanent blindness and can cause discharge, watering and redness of the eyes. "All of these conditions are reversible if detected early and given prompt treatment. But due to the extremely high volume of patients admitted, all these eye signs went unnoticed and even after patients recovered they had some amount of eye morbidity," he added.

He further stated that consequently, a study was carried out, with 20 nursing staff members participating in Vadodara. For 30 days, participants received training on eye care, how to recognise danger symptoms, and how to notify an ophthalmologist if they did. "As a result, we noticed a 2.5 times improvement right away, and the eye issues significantly decreased. The study is pertinent, and there is a need for a globally recognised strategy to teach nurses how to reduce eye morbidity," he stated.

Dr. Atul Kamath M completed his Fellowship in IOL from Sankara Academy of Vision, Coimbatore. He completed his Ophthalmology Residency at Saurashtra University, Shri M P. Shah Government Medical College, Jamnagar. He holds an MBBS degree from K S Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore. Currently, Atul Kamath is a Consultant Ophthalmologist & phaco-refractive surgeon at Yenepoya Medical College & Hospital, Deralakatte, Mangaluru. 

He has participated in nearly 10 research projects and has 11 publications to his credit. He has won 2nd place in the Prestigious Leela Krishnamurthi award at the 31st annual Conference of Biomedical Scientists. Moreover, he has presented several papers, e-posters, physical posters, and videos in international, national and state conferences from KOSCON 2018, 2020; AIOS 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023; APAO 2019, 2022, and ESCRS 2022.