Dr. Arjan Hura: 2021 International Resident Leadership Award recipient
Arjan Hura, MD is a refractive, cataract and anterior segment surgeon in Cleveland, Ohio who earned a reputation as an outstanding leader during his journey through the University of Cincinnati’s Ophthalmology residency program. His unwavering commitment to the field of ophthalmology has already encompassed significant work related to patient safety and physician advocacy, medical student and resident education and innovative clinical research. Throughout, Dr. Hura has demonstrated a focused commitment to lifelong learning.
Committed to advocacy and resident education
As a patient advocate, Dr. Hura is indefatigable. He has met with congressional lawmakers to advocate for patients regarding medication shortages, led Grand Rounds presentations for his department on patient advocacy and worked with the Ohio Ophthalmology Society to establish a young ophthalmologists section on patient advocacy – to name a few of his many activities.
As just one small example of Dr. Hura’s leadership and attention to detail, soon after his residency began, he identified a potential patient safety issue related to a decentralized and hard-to-access system for assigning subspecialists and residents. He immediately set about to fix it. Dr. Hura designed a cloud-based calendar comprising junior and senior call assignments, the attending of record and the Department of Ophthalmology’s educational calendar of events. The calendar, which was swiftly adopted by all residents, remains an invaluable resource in the program three years later.
Dedicated to mentorship and continuing education
Dr. Hura is deeply committed to mentoring ophthalmology students and routinely meets with the third- and fourth-year students in his free time. He teaches them how to use technical equipment, reviews ophthalmic exam topics and personal statements, provides application and away rotation advice, connects applicants with mentors and teaches colleagues how to network. He has helped lead medical student wet-labs on how to use B-scan ultrasound to image the globe and has helped teach medical students the ophthalmic portion of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) as part of the formal medical school curriculum.
A focus on lifelong learning
Dr. Hura uses his “free” time to travel to educational conferences and academic institutions, which continually broadens his knowledge and perspective on ophthalmology. He is committed to scholarly research, and has presented every year of residency, earning best podium presentation during his intern year. His novel research on structural changes in meibomian glands after vectored thermal pulsation received a National Eye Institute Travel Grant and won Best Paper of Session at ASCRS 2019. His work comparing intraoperative toric lens alignment technologies was the fourth most viewed article in the Journal of Refractive Surgery in 2017.
Dr. Hura embodies all aspects of the CanMEDS roles and has exemplified exceptional leadership during his residency – all in pursuit of the advancement of medicine.
