Pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

In the early 20th century, health care and other services in the Arabian Peninsula were underdeveloped. In 1932 the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was formed, and soon thereafter, its vast oil reserves were discovered. Using its newly found wealth, the country embarked on a series of ambitious projects to modernize infrastructure with attention to health care services. During the second half of the 20th century, state-of-the-art universities, medical schools, and hospitals were successfully built and staffed with expatriate guidance. Saudis were soon able to receive higher education and advanced health care within their country rather than having to travel abroad. The 1982 opening of the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital (KKESH) in Riyadh heralded the era of modern ophthalmology in Saudi Arabia. 1 Wagner M.D. Al-Rajhi A. Ophthalmology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Arch Ophthalmol. 2001; 119: 1539-1543 Crossref PubMed Scopus (14) Google Scholar Virtually all initial ophthalmic personnel were recruited from abroad (mostly from North America) to provide services to Saudi citizens and training to Saudi physicians and ancillary staff. Two years later, collaboration of KKESH with King Saud University and local hospitals led to the establishment of the well-structured “Greater Riyadh” integrated ophthalmology residency program and allowed the first ophthalmologists to be formally trained within the country. With the development of regional centers providing primary and secondary ophthalmic care, KKESH evolved to become a tertiary care referral facility. Interested residents had the option of extra KKESH rotations in a particular subspecialty during their fourth (final) year; the country’s first subspecialists in pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus received their training in this manner. In 1994 a structured subspecialty program modeled after the American fellowship system was formally inaugurated at KKESH. The inclusion of “Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus” among the fellowships marked its first formal recognition as a subspecialty within the Kingdom. From 1994 to 2003, this structured fellowship program has graduated 17 fellows in pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus, many of whom currently provide important services in the country.