Feature
A Man With‘ Long-Way’ Vision
When a near-blind indigenous man told Dr Angus Turner that he could see a long way, it gave the young ophthalmologist profound insight into his own life and practice.
It’ s perfectly understandable how an enthusiastic dissection of an ox eye in a Year 10 science class might capture the imagination of a 15-year-old school boy and inspire a life in ophthalmology. A dramatic squirt here, a gross splurt there sum up a perfect day at school. But what a young Angus Turner did next was a little more unusual.
The year was 1992, a time when teenagers’ imaginations were fired by the relatively new phenomenon of the World Wide Web. The curious incidence of the ox eye at the Guildford Grammar School science lab quickly moved to the computer lab and in just a click of a mouse, Angus was sending an email to the professor of ophthalmology at Oxford University.
“ To be honest, I was searching the Oxford website because I loved rowing and was on the page for the famous Oxford-Cambridge boat race. I just followed the links to ophthalmology. The professor had just set up his webpage and the first email to trickle through was from a 15-year-old boy with an interest in eyes in Perth, Australia, asking him if he had any work!”
“ He wrote back and said it was a lovely idea but I probably should go to medical school first. As it turned out, I did both. After completing my internship at‘ Charlies’ in 2001 I was incredibly fortunate to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, so I knocked on the professor’ s door 10 years later. It was such a privilege to work with this amazing community of scholars.”
Every turn of his career has been an adventure for ophthalmologist Dr Angus Turner. After five years in Melbourne, where he completed his training, he returned to WA to the Lions Eye Institute in 2011 and has spent the best part of the past three years running clinics in the bush.
Several days after Medical Forum spoke to him, he was set to depart on a seven-week road trip starting at Kalgoorlie, through the Goldfields, Pilbara and Kimberley winding up in Kununurra visiting communities and towns along the way with a team that included registrars, optometrists, orthoptists, nurses and liaison workers.
He can hardly contain his excitement.
“ Normally I fly in and fly out on bush trips. It’ s going to be a nice change to go more slowly and appreciate the vast land and people and communities rather than just barging in for a few hours. I’ ve always loved
the outdoors, right from school. I’ ve always jumped on any possibility for a bush trip.”
“ People in the bush are pragmatic and friendly and they seem to be able to see the bigger picture. And ophthalmology is very rewarding. There are a number of treatments and options that really make a big difference quickly.”
But with the bush work, comes the challenge – and reward – of working
��Dr Angus Turner hits the dirt roads on a series of bush clinics.
culturally. The first step on his cultural awareness journey was as a second year medical student wandering around the Goldfields with indigenous pastor Geoffrey Stokes, who took Angus on a 10-day bush adventure. It was Geoffrey who posed to Angus one of his biggest professional conundrums.
“ He told me not to look an Aboriginal person in the eye; to just be comfortable sitting side by side and staring off in the distance. But that is the direct opposite of what I have to do, and if there are hundreds of patients, I’ ve got five minutes. Telehealth has the same problem. I have to ask‘ can I shine this light into your eye’. It can be a real problem.”
“ In some communities and for some people, their vision is a lower priority than it is for me. Some patients may not want to come to clinic because there are more complex and important things going on in their lives.”
“ I have had patients who – and I love this expression –‘ I can see a looong way’ and they wave their hands out into the distance.‘ And I can see the stars’. And when I check my objective measure on the chart they can’ t see a thing and may be legally blind. But that patient is expressing their longway vision and I have to respect that and try not to put my expectations on that person or that community, because it’ s not really going to work.”
“ It is a great privilege to work in these communities but I have to keep the broader picture in mind that people have family, cultural issues and other health conditions that may be more devastating. Their sight is just one part of the picture.”
“ So it can be tricky to turn up as a visitor into a community with our own idea of patient flow and our own way of doing things and expect everyone to come running. If there is no trust or community acceptance, that visit will be a flop. Engaging with the local community, the Aboriginal health workers, the drivers who collect patients from all over, the clinic staff – everyone in the team is so important.”
“ I’ m a great advocate for the work of optometrists who have a whole network of visits into smaller communities that specialists don’ t do. They are a key in identifying cases that we can do something about, and they also support the service by explaining what is happening and following up.”
Team work, when it comes down to it, is what Angus Turner relishes ever since he was a school boy. Rowing in the winning eight in the 1993 Head of the
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