Optical Prism September 2017 | Page 39

the true appreciation of vision from the patients they're able to help, either dramatically or by the most minimalist means. “To be able to be that person that helps patients maintain their best potential vision or gain better vision on a weekly basis is really a gift,” she says. “Patients come into my office post-op day one, every single week, and at least three of them are blown away, from what to us is normal. But for a lot of people the expectations are not what we're able to give them now. T hey're amazed at how well they can see.” The corneal transplant patients are a different category altogether than her cataract patients. “These are really, really sick eyes and a lot of these patients never thought they would see again,” Ziai says. “We don't always get them back to 20-20, but we get them back to a place that they've not been in many, many years, and that's everything to these people. Because 20-400 may not sound good to you, but for some people 20-400 is the difference between independence and being completely reliant on someone else.” Her biggest challenge comes not from complex surgeries either, but while she's working in the clinic. She says with too few professionals and a grow- ing number of patients, they can only do so much with the time they have to serve. “The sheer volume of patients now, with the baby boomers aging and cuts in government funding, it's become extremely stressful to care for the people who need care,” she says. “When they get to me, or any of my colleagues in an academic centre, we're the end of the road. So if I can't see them for six or seven months because I have 60 people a day to see in the clinic, people feel that, and that's what stresses me out in my everyday that I can't see more patients and that there's so many more patients and not enough of us to treat them.” In the operating room, which Ziai calls her “Zen Space,” she specializes on corneal transplants and cataract surgeries. And it's where she puts her training to work to help a wide variety of patients on a regular basis. The technological advancement she's seen during her brief time in the field has jumped ahead dramatically in 20 Visit WWW.OPTICALPRISM.CA The website for Canada’s optical marketplace Informing the Canadian ECP in print and on-line for over 35 years. Follow us on years. Ziai used corneal transplants as an example, where they once had to remove the entire cornea to replace damaged tissue – where now they're able to do a partial removal of the dis- eased tissue, called a Lamellar corneal transplant. Depending on the disease, this allows the damaged layer of the cornea, about eight microns thick, to be replaced with an exact anatomical structure from a donor eye. “So the outcomes are better, the surger- ies are much less invasive, the patients recover much quicker and this is just in my little world of the cornea,” says Ziai. And the key to continued advancements in the eyecare field comes from those who do the most research and devel- opment and maintain a passion for advancing the field of ophthalmology. She says Canada is keeping up with the world because of the contributions of medical professionals. “Nothing happens without these innovators and key opinion leaders, the early adopters of new technology,” she says. “You need bright minds and passionate physicians to take on new ideas and develop them into practice.”