Soosan Jacob

About Soosan Jacob

Director and Chief, Dr. Agarwal's Refractive and Cornea Foundation, Senior Consultant, Cataract and Glaucoma Services, Dr. Agarwal’s Group of Eye Hospitals, Chennai, TN, India

Make a bold prediction for the future of ophthalmology.

Completely online evaluation, AI-assisted diagnosis and medical treatment, increasing robotic assistance in surgery, completely dropless recovery, a spectacle free world at all ages, gene therapy curing many hitherto untreatable conditions. These will happen – the only question is when. Some will take years, some a few decades, and some maybe even more. But all will eventually happen (unless humankind is mindless enough to self-destruct before that).

If you weren’t an ophthalmologist, what would you be doing instead?

In another possible avatar I’d like to think I would still be searching for solutions and thinking differently.

What industry trends are catching your attention right now?

One is my own pet project and my baby: corneal allogenic intrastromal ring segments (CAIRS). I am very grateful that CAIRS has become widely accepted around the world among patients, ophthalmologists, and the industry alike.