News from the Jerome Jacobson International Program at the Kellogg Eye Center: Ghanaian Pediatric Ophthalmologist Finishes Her Training With Observership At Kellogg

Vera Beyuo, MD (left) with Lianqun Wu, MD, a visiting pediatric ophthalmologist from China (center), and Otana Jakpor, MD, pediatric ophthalmology fellow at Kellogg.

News from our member Kellogg Eye Center

Vera Beyuo, MD, a pediatric ophthalmologist from Ghana, completed a 3-month observership at Kellogg in March 2024 under the sponsorship of the International Council of Ophthalmology. 

The observership was the final part of her 2-year fellowship training in Accra designed jointly by local ophthalmologists and Kellogg’s pediatric ophthalmologists Monte Del Monte, MD and Grace Wang, MD.  She is the first fellow to complete the program. 

Dr. Beyuo said that “coming to the Kellogg Eye Center to do a clinical observership had been one of my aspirations. I had all my medical, postgraduate and most of my sub-specialty training in Ghana with excellent teachers, but I looked forward to experiencing firsthand what the practice of pediatric ophthalmology was like in a center of excellence and adapting best practices to a low resource setting in order to improve service delivery to Ghana’s youngest.” 

Among the many things Dr. Beyuo found distinctive here was “including children in explanations about their care whenever possible.”  She was impressed with the “many low vision options available to kids” and how often “school teachers were informed of their care.” 

In collaboration with Vera Essuman, MD, chief of the Ophthalmology Unit at the University of Ghana, Kellogg ophthalmologists have now prepared curricula for fellowship training in Ghana for all ophthalmic subspecialties, filling a critical resource need in that country and providing a model for West Africa.