Cataract Chronicles-25 years
As I celebrate my 25th year volunteering as an eye surgeon in Southeast Asia. I am delighted to share photos and stories about the vision challenges and the people and cultures of India, Nepal, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. - Dr. Gary Barth
Chronicle 24 - Myanmar(Burma) Eye Surgeon Training Quota: “One male a year”
During World War II, Britain ruled over India and its eastern neighbor, then called Burma.
I have volunteered in these neighboring two countries 17 times. One of the huge differences in medical care is the status of women.
Burma, now renamed Myanmar, gained independence in 1948. It has now become a military dictatorship. However, outside of the military junta, the role of women in this predominately Theravadan Buddhist country has become the polar opposite of its neighbor India.
For instance, I purposely went into a Mynamar “Arab Bank” to see if women were proportionally represented in a Muslim-funded bank. To my surprise, only the security guard was male.
Further evidence of the improved status of women was brought home to me on a trip there to meet with the head of the Department of Ophthalmology in the capital Yangon.
I was invited to the National Medical School to perform corneal transplants and give a lecture to the 30 ophthalmic residents. This is a picture I took from the podium of the lecture participants. You will note only one male.
When I asked the Department Chairman about the gender ratio, he said: “We have a quota of accepting one male per year so that on trips outside the capital city, the other surgical residents will feel safer. If we only accepted on merit and study skills, we would have ten females a year.”
