Dear Patients and Friends,
Ophthalmology is a magical field where you can plant seeds of happiness. Nothing can be more precious than to see our beautiful world with your own eyes. For most of my patients “to see” literally means “to live.” It gives me great satisfaction whenever I can give back this beautiful world to one of my patients so that they can appreciate it with their own eyes.
From the time I was a young girl, my mother instilled the love of medicine in me. She herself went a long way, rising from working as an ophthalmologist at a local health center to becoming head of the ophthalmology department of a regional hospital. She personally created and monitored ophthalmology divisions in a number of hospitals and mentored several dozen doctors, medical residents, and nurses. She has always been my role model, my best teacher, and my most critical judge.
Dedicating her life to medicine, she worked long and hectic hours, and would often take me with her to work. As a result, I feel like I grew up in the ophthalmology department of my mother’s hospital, observing and learning a doctor’s life from the inside. It is no wonder I never had to think twice about which profession to choose when the time called for it; I only pictured myself being an ophthalmologist.
After receiving my degree with honors there, I continued my education at Svyatoslav Fyodorov’s Eye Institute in Moscow, in one of the most challenging medical resident programs in the Russian Federation. Doctor Fyodorov is considered to be the father of the ophthalmic microsurgery. I was lucky to have him as my mentor for his credentials, but also because I was a part of the last group to be trained by him before he passed away in 2000.
In Russia, it may be considered unimaginable for a young doctor to dream that she would continue her education in the United States. And yet, it was indeed a dream of mine, knowing that medical residency in this country is considered the best in the world. I kept searching for the right opportunity and never gave up this dream. I adored ophthalmology and was especially fascinated by eye surgery, and I was aware that the best results could be achieved by the combination of the best technology and the finest surgical skills. That is why I chose the resident program at Louisiana State University, which ranks among the top ten programs in the U.S. in surgical cases performed by the resident. On average, an ophthalmology resident performs about 120 cataract surgeries during their residency. I personally performed more than 300, in addition to other surgical procedures that I did.
I feel extremely blessed for all the great opportunities in my life. I have been given the chance to heal people by treating the whole person and integrating care of vision problems with other aspects of the patients’ lives and health. I regard all of my patients as my family, and I treat them as if they were relatives. As I continue in this goal, I hope to continue to earn your faith.