Dr. Hening Naluria
With the goal of increasing the capacity for specialized eye care in Indonesia, Dr. Hening Naluria from East Java, recently completed a year-long fellowship program in Pediatric Ophthalmology and Adult Strabismus at HCP’s flagship training partner, the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology (TIO) in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Mentorship is an essential part of HCP-supported training. Dr. Hening appreciated her mentors’ emphasis on teaching. Understanding the technical and practical functions of eye care are essential, but knowing how to effectively share that training can multiply the benefit of that knowledge. Dr. Hening hopes that the training she received will cause a ripple effect in her country and looks forward to sharing her knowledge with her Indonesian colleagues.
Dr. Hening’s connection to Tilganga dates back several years, as she completed her residency in ophthalmology at Tilganga in November 2018. Shortly after her residency, she participated in several surgical outreach events with the Tilganga team, traveling to Cambodia, Laos and East Lombok-Indonesia. The outreach events increased her confidence in both her clinical and surgical skills.
When she started her residency program, she only knew three words of Nepali - namaste (greetings), tala (down), and mati (up). As she struggled to learn the new language, she recalled an Indonesian proverb, "Wherever ground is stood on, the sky is held high." — meaning, wherever you are, you should observe local customs.
“I believe a person's success is measured by the ability to communicate,” Dr. Hening explains. She was determined to meet her patients with the ability to speak to them in their own language. After six months, she was proficient at speaking with patients in Nepali, and after completing her fellowship, she learned how to fluently speak Nepali.
Dr. Hening’s main fellowship goals were to expertly diagnose, manage, and treat the most common eye problems she was seeing in her country and implement that knowledge to help Indonesian children with eye problems. Having achieved those goals, Dr. Hening wants to continue developing her skills in retinopathy of prematurity, congenital glaucoma and retinoblastoma as she sees that these three diseases are not adequately treated in Indonesia.
The cornerstone of the Himalayan Cataract Project’s success is its long-standing, trusted partnership withTilganga. The quality of medical instruction and patient care is paramount to efforts to reduce the rate of global blindness. Together, HCP and Tilganga have dramatically improved eye care by creating a proven model worthy of worldwide replication.
