Below are videos of an endoscopic technique used by some ophthalmologists to get a really great view of the retina or ciliary body...truly amazing!!!

A multi-layered RD + schisis with "repair" (this retina is as banged up as it gets!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7khstk-s0U

Giant retinal tear + RD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsdeQ_196bI

Explanation of the technique below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY1zQ2CRbD0

Exploding ciliary processes - has an amazing view of the ciliary body in vivo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2O0uY3MS60

On of my classmates sent me an email about a patient he saw at the Center for the Partially Sighted, a site for low vision patients (I also will be rotating through this site next quarter). He was so inspired by this patient so he decided to write about it - I was also very inspired so I asked him if I can post it on my blog:

It was just another day at CPS. Only saw two patients in the morning. Then in the afternoon, I had an 18 year old patient. Lets just call him Daniel C. ‘DC’. Daniel’s story is incredible and inspiring that I had to share it with you guys. I don’t want to be all dramatic and say, “Wow, this patient totally inspired me and changed my life forever”. But his story is truly uplifting and inspired me to perhaps work with low vision patients, especially with the younger population.

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Today for the very first time I dripped some fluorescein on a patient, and of course, the patient wore WHITE! This has never happened to me after the hundreds of times I've applied it, but it so happened that the patient blinked so hard that the dye squeezed out of his eye and jumped onto his shirt. I even held his eyelids open and had his head tilted back but he blinked super hard! I freaked out a bit since I thought that it wouldn't wash out, but fortunately the residents told me that it washes off later on. Luckily the patient was really cool about it...but gosh, that shirt was really nice and I hope that it will really wash off...

So here's the lesson learned: hold the patient's lids down real well when instilling fluorescein!!!

In a previous blog, I mentioned briefly about Posterior Vitreous Detachments (PVDs)...well as it turns out, today I saw another PVD and the patient had a classic appearance of the vitreous right behind the eye. However, it can be very difficult to detect if you don't know what it looks like. After searching far and wide in the internet, I couldn't find a good picture of what it looks like, but turns that I found something even better - a video! Please check out the following link to see the video:

http://www.ophthobook.com/videos/retina-basics-video

This video from YouTube also describes how a PVD occurs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJn4h0n5LQ

Hopefully after you see this video you'll be able to detect PVDs as seen behind the crystalline lens!