Lebanese ophthalmologist honored after performing cutting-edge operation

BEIRUT —Lebanese Doctor Suleiman Abu Latif received the Fellowship of the British Royal College of Eye Surgeons, the highest title in the ophthalmology profession, after recording a new medical achievement at Rachaya Governmental Hospital, the National News Agency reported.

Here’s what we know:

    • Abu Latif made the decision to perform a permanent implantation of special lenses designed to correct vision in a patient's eye, which he described as “a resounding success.” The patient, Ghawa Jihad al-Qadi from the village Ainata, suffered from myopia and found that LASIK surgery was not sufficient to restore her vision. Abu Latif said that "the lenses are very modern and designed specifically for the patient's eyes after taking accurate measurements of the eye from the outside and from the inside." He said he brought the lenses with him to Lebanon after they were designed in the UK.

    • Abu Latif explained that "the lens is expensive, but it is implanted once and remains in the eye for life, or until the need to remove glaucoma at an advanced age, or in the event of corneal problems caused by the lens."

    • "The eye is monitored every six months during the year in the first stage, and then every year once," he added.

    • Latif said that the operation "needed an operating room equipped for eye surgery and a modern microscope,” he said. "The operating room in Rachaya Governmental Hospital has a modern microscope. The decision was to perform the operation with the approval of the hospital, which provided the initial supplies and the operating room, and I was able to secure medical supplies from Britain."