Uday Devgan

Refractive and Cataract Surgeon, Devgan Eye Surgery; Partner, Specialty Surgical, Beverly Hills; Host, CataractCoach.com; Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology, UCLA, California, USA

Why did you decide to pursue ophthalmology/your subspecialty?

When I saw a patient with a white cataract go from blind to normal vision in a few minutes with a precise and beautiful cataract surgery, I was awestruck. Cataract surgery is truly a miracle of modern medicine and we can change the way people see the world for the rest of their lives. 

Is there a particular tool, technological advance, or instrument you would not have been able to live without over the past 10 years?

Video learning has transformed ophthalmic surgical learning. We can learn new techniques and technologies from a high-definition video on our mobile phones from anywhere on the planet. This allows us to learn from the experience (and mistakes) of others so that we can compress the learning curve and bring better vision to more patients. 

Do you have any personal missions for the next 10 years?

I want to continue to innovate in the field of ophthalmic surgical learning by continuing to publish a new video every day (coming close to 2000 videos now) and also pursue other channels, like our curriculum series and new podcast. 

Do you have any strong opinions with which the rest of the field tends to disagree?

Perhaps we need to periodically redefine the way we measure success in ophthalmology. I love ophthalmology and I love cataract surgery, but I love my relationships and my health more. This is surprisingly uncommon among my peers.