“Practicing in and out till perfection” – Use of mobile repair microscope for home wet lab practice and as an alternative to high-end microscopes in wet lab

Ophthalmic surgeries are microsurgeries that require fine motor skills and precision of movements. Practicing under microscope during wet lab sessions develops hand–eye coordination, removes performance anxiety, builds muscle memory, and helps attain fineness of movement. However, not every training center is equipped with a wet lab. Development of a wet lab facility is an expensive task, as the cost of operating microscopes, simulators, and phacoemulsification machines is significant. A mobile repairing tabletop, portable stereo microscope can be utilized to develop a basic, affordable wet lab facility in under-resourced training centers, so that resident training is not compromised. Besides, it can be utilized by residents to develop a personal, basic wet lab space at their own room, where they can practice at their convenience. Here, we aim to introduce this mobile repairing  stereo microscope for training and skill development of residents. The magnification range (3x-50x),binocularity and depth perception of mobile repairing stereo microscopes resembles operating microscope closely, hence can be utilized by budding surgeons to practice various skills in risk free environment. A mobile repairing table top microscope costs around 125 US dollars to 200 US dollars, while the most affordable operating microscope costs nearly 5 to 6 times, hence this portable stereo mobile repairing microscope can serve as cost effective alternative to expensive microscopes for wet lab training. Its affordability and portability makes it suitable for home wet lab practice also, where residents can practice their surgical steps day and night as per their suitability. Residents can practice suturing on Styrofoam, steps of manual small incision cataract surgery on flash box, capsulorhexis on chocolate film, keratoplasty on discarded cornea and intravitreal injection on goat’s eye under this mobile phone repair microscope. A gamut of surgical steps can be practiced under these microscope just like any operating microscope. A pilot test with this microscope was conducted by us ,and 6 final year residents were told to put 16 keratoplasty sutures on Styrofoam and post practice assessment was done .4 residents described no difficulty in accomplishing the task and no difference with conventional microscope while other 2 reported slightly decreased clarity  with this microscope.All 6 residents found the practice session to be effective. Hence, this small affordable mobile repair microscope can be of great utility to ophthalmologists and cost incurred on conventional microscopes can be curtailed in establishing wetlab with this portable table top option.