Ophthalmic Training
Teaching the people who will care for eyes across Imo State and the South East.
Why we train
Nigeria does not have enough eye care workers, and the shortage is felt hardest outside the cities. A hospital can only treat the patients who reach it. Training multiplies that reach, because every nurse who learns to recognise a red flag, and every doctor who learns to operate safely, goes on to serve people this hospital will never see.
St Joseph’s Eye Hospital Mgbirichi has run a working eye theatre since 2009, with clinics, a laser suite, an optical laboratory and a full diagnostic unit on one site. That volume and range is what makes practical teaching possible here.
WHAT WE TEACH
Training we offer
Four programmes, each built around supervised practice rather than lectures alone.
For nurses, community health workers and primary care staff. How to examine an eye, recognise what is urgent, treat what can safely be treated locally, and refer the rest in time to make a difference.
For scrub nurses and theatre assistants. Preparing the eye theatre, instruments and operating microscope, sterile technique, and assisting a surgeon through a cataract or glaucoma list.
For doctors developing their cataract surgery. Supervised operating in both small incision cataract surgery and phacoemulsification, on lists with the volume needed to build real competence.
For technicians and optometrists. Hands-on use of OCT, perimetry, biometry, pachymetry, gonioscopy and ocular ultrasound, and how to produce a reading a clinician can act on.
How the training works
Teaching happens inside the working hospital, not alongside it. Trainees join real clinics, real theatre lists and the real diagnostic unit, supervised throughout by our consultants and senior staff.
Numbers on each programme are deliberately small, because supervised practice is the point. What a trainee leaves with is measured in what they can do unaided, not in hours attended.
Who it is for
We teach nurses, community health extension workers, optometrists, ophthalmic technicians and doctors. Some come from mission and government hospitals across the South East, some from further afield, and some are our own staff developing into new roles.
If you are a hospital, a health authority or a training institution wanting to place several people, we are glad to discuss a programme shaped around what your service actually needs.
Apply or ask about a programme
Tell us who you are, what you already do, and what you want to be able to do. We will tell you which programme fits and when the next place is available.