-Kai Noor, MD of Tallinn, Estonia, co-owns and heads one of the foremost private eye clinics of the country. Just home from AAO in Vegas, she answers some TBE questions.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE OPHTHALMOLOGY?

 Since both my parents were doctors, becoming a doctor was almost obvious for me. My mother had some friends who were ophthalmologists any they were always telling about how clean and beautiful this practice is. This is from where I got my inspiration to specialize on ophthalmology.

 WHERE DID YOU TRAIN?

 I obtained my higher education in Tartu University, in the medical faculty. During that time to become a specialized doctor -ophthalmologist, we were obliged to work as an apprentice with professional guidance. During that one year were supposed to learn everything about ophtalmology and after it, I was supposedly capable of working alone. I spent my one year at Tallinn’s Eyeclinic (Tallinna Silmakliinik).

 ANY COMPLAINTS ON TRAINING? 

 The education I obtained from the university was very good, on the other hand the one year specialization had almost no point what so ever. It was too short and there was almost no specialization as we obtained nearly only the basic knowledge of ophtalmology, a practice that has surgery involved, but that part we didn’t even touch.

WHERE DID YOU WORK PREVIOUSLY?

 First off I started at Tallinn Magdalena hospital. This hospital works a lot with diabetics. While working I found out that I  knew almost nothing about the problems of diabetics, the same applied to medical retina. Then I went to Sweden to learn more about diabetes. Here I would like to thank Dr. Peep Algvere, an intelligent doctor, who was my tutor and who made me more and more interested in the problems of diabetics and diabetic retinopathy. From there on, in Estonia created a medical center within Magdalena hospital for the diabetics, and started performing diabetic retinopathy screening in Estonia with the help of prof.Eva Kohner. And we were the first to do that in our country. As part time jobs I worked in a private practice and in an optical shop called Instrumentarium.  

 WHAT MADE YOU WORK WHERE YOU ARE NOW?

 In year 1998 I decided to create my own private practice, since I didn’t have good outlooks of perfectioning myself in Magdalena hospital. From there on we have only expanded, we were the first in Estonia to preform LASIK surgery. Currently we cover both, the surgical and the medical side in our private clinic.

 WHAT WILL YOU DO LATER?

 I see myself with ophthalmology. I will try to go along with the trends and newest equipment.

 WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU LEARN AT AAO?

 At the AAO annual meeting in Las Vegas I took part of a suspeciality day, where the main topic was retina. There I was scpecially interested of the new trends in AMD treating.

 HAS OPHTHALMOLOGY GIVEN YOU GOOD THINGS?

 As ophtalmology is a very technical speciality, it assumes a good knowledges of the machines. Therefore I have become more and more interested in the machines and the optics that helps us ophtalmologists work.

For more on Kai´s endeavors, go here 

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