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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Year : 2018  |  Volume : 66  |  Issue : 8  |  Page : 1225-1227

Rubric for assessment of eye bank professionals for eye retrieval: A new tool and a step toward standardizing eye retrieval process


Department of Cornea, Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, Daryaganj, New Delhi, India

Date of Web Publication23-Jul-2018

Correspondence Address:
Dr. Manisha Acharya
Department of Cornea, Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, 5027, Kedarnath Marg, Daryaganj, New Delhi - 110 002
India
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Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.4103/ijo.IJO_357_18

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How to cite this article:
Acharya M, Farooqui JH, Mathur U. Rubric for assessment of eye bank professionals for eye retrieval: A new tool and a step toward standardizing eye retrieval process. Indian J Ophthalmol 2018;66:1225-7

How to cite this URL:
Acharya M, Farooqui JH, Mathur U. Rubric for assessment of eye bank professionals for eye retrieval: A new tool and a step toward standardizing eye retrieval process. Indian J Ophthalmol [serial online] 2018 [cited 2024 Mar 28];66:1225-7. Available from: https://journals.lww.com/ijo/pages/default.aspx/text.asp?2018/66/8/1225/237335



Sir,

We write to you as a continuation of the work that we have been doing in standardizing eye bank facilities at our institute. After discussing about the quality indicators in eye bank, we would like to add to the thoughts of Prajna in discussing about the importance of “Good Quality” in Eye Banks.[1],[2] Prajna, in his guest editorial, discussed how The Eye Bank Association of India has grown and created awareness about eye donation.[2] He also mentions about the operational standards and practices, and we would like to give our inputs for the same.[2]

The Government of India has now authorized certified eye bank technicians to do eye retrieval under Human Organ Transplant Act, 1994.[3] However, there are no clear-cut guidelines on how to assess their retrieval capabilities. We have been working on an assessment tool, which can be used for their assessment. This is based on the recommendations by Honavar [4] and Farooqui et al.,[5] which mention modifications of the Ophthalmology Surgical Competency Assessment Rubric (OSCAR) for assessing trainees as an educational tool. We devised a new rubric-Rubric for Assessment of Eyecare Professionals for Eye Retrieval (RAEPER) and have tried to implement it as a pilot study assessing eye bank technicians' eye retrieval capabilities [Figure 1]a, [Figure 1]b, [Figure 1]c.
Figure 1:

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A total of six technicians, with a minimum experience of 20 independent In Situ Corneoscleral rim retrievals, enrolled as trainees. One-day workshop comprising of didactic lectures, educational videos, and eye retrieval assessment was conducted. The assessment, which was performed on human eyes, was done by two independent trainers (cornea consultants who have been involved with training fellows and well versed with OSCAR).

It was seen that both the trainer's scores matched closely in the following skills-surgical hand scrubbing (P = 0.317), gloving (P = 0.131), and manual dexterity (P = 0.615). There was a discrepancy between both scores in incision through sclera (P = 0.43), scissor technique (P = 0.221), and leakage of vitreous (P = 0.048).

From this exercise, we tried to validate our assessment tool. We feel that RAEPER is useful to develop training guidelines, identifying gaps and eventually improving eye retrieval process. In addition, this rubric can be used to assess eye bank technicians, residents, fellows, or eye bank personnel certified and assigned with the duty of eye retrieval. Similarly, the trainer can be an Eye Bank manager, senior technician or an ophthalmologist who has experience in eye retrieval process, and not just cornea surgeons. We have started a multicentric study using this tool, but till the results are awaited, we would like to encourage other readers to start using RAEPER in their Eye Banks.

Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge Dr. Abha Gaur, Dr. Prem Prakash Singh, and Mr. Animesh Das for their time and valuable inputs as trainers. We are also grateful to Miracles in Sight, USA, and SightLife™ for their support and for sharing the educational material and videos with us.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.



 
  References Top

1.
Acharya M, Biswas S, Das A, Mathur U, Dave A, Singh A, et al. Quality indicators for eye bank. Indian J Ophthalmol 2018;66:389-93.  Back to cited text no. 1
[PUBMED]  [Full text]  
2.
Prajna VN, Shah M. Good quality pays rich dividends. Indian J Ophthalmol 2018;66:357-8.  Back to cited text no. 2
[PUBMED]  [Full text]  
3.
The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act; 1994. Available from: http://www.lawmin.nic.in/ld/PACT/1994/The%20Transplantation%20of%20Human%20Organs%20and%20Tissues%20Act,%201994.pdf. [Last accessed on 2018 Mar 12].  Back to cited text no. 3
    
4.
Honavar SG. How good a surgeon are you? – Standardized formative assessment of surgical competence for ophthalmology residents in training. Indian J Ophthalmol 2017;65:777-8.  Back to cited text no. 4
[PUBMED]  [Full text]  
5.
Farooqui JH, Jaramillo A, Sharma M, Gomaa A. Use of modified international council of ophthalmology- ophthalmology surgical competency assessment rubric (ICO- OSCAR) for phacoemulsification- wet lab training in residency program. Indian J Ophthalmol 2017;65:898-9.  Back to cited text no. 5
[PUBMED]  [Full text]  


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