If you were scheduled to attend meetings in a country that had just been rocked by terrorist attacks, would you still go? No one could blame you for being cautious and remaining at home.

When terrorists committed a series of attacks in India in 2008, Audrey R. Talley Rostov, MD, was intent on keeping her travel plans.

DETERMINATION TO HELP

Dr. Talley Rostov had been scheduled to attend a seminar in Ahmadabad and then travel to Mumbai, where she aimed to learn more about ocular health care from local ophthalmologists. These plans were thrown into disarray by the Ahmadabad bombings in July 2008 followed by the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which took place just before she was due to travel in November 2008.

“All the meetings that were scheduled were canceled out of caution, but I was still determined to go,” says Dr. Talley Rostov. “I’d taken time off, my husband was coming with me, and we’d found a place for our kids to stay. We were determined to not let the terrorists win.”

Dr. Talley Rostov is, in her own words, a very adventurous traveler. While she had some concerns, she feels that the safest time to visit somewhere dangerous is often after a tragedy, as security will be heightened. So, she continued with her travel plans after revising her trip to visit rural areas, away from the risk of further attacks in cities. She got in touch with an eye bank that informed her of a doctor who wanted to learn Descemet’s stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty surgery.

“She was the only cornea surgeon for a catchment area of a couple million people. So I went there with corneas and with some instruments and was teaching her and her colleagues. I was struck by how great the need was,” Dr. Talley Rostov says.

ONLY THE BEGINNING

This was just the start of Dr. Talley Rostov’s long association with Indian ophthalmology. During the last 15 years, she has been at the forefront of providing urgently needed care to the country’s patients. She was the first surgeon to perform and teach femtosecond laser keratoplasty in New Delhi and has taught courses on endothelial keratoplasty to surgeons at medical institutions across the country.

She has continued her work domestically at her clinic at Northwest Eye Surgeons in Seattle, Wash., as the director of cornea, cataract and refractive surgery. In addition, Dr. Talley Rostov is the global medical liaison at SightLife, an organization whose international operations are now controlled by the Himalayan Cataracts Project (HCP) Cureblindness. The HCP was originally established to provide sustainable eye care in the eponymous mountain region and has since gone global. Similarly, working with SightLife has taken her to Ethiopia as well, where she helped establish a corneal scholarship.

THE ‘JIM HENSON’ PHILOSOPHY

Dr. Talley Rostov maintains a resolutely positive attitude towards her professional life and adheres to what could be described as the “Jim Henson” philosophy, named after the creator of the Muppets.

“In the words of the great Jim Henson, ‘My hope is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here.’ That’s the attitude I apply every day to my work in ophthalmology.”

What’s especially important about her efforts is sustainability. “It’s important that we’re training the trainers to train others,” Dr. Talley Rostov says. “This creates a healthcare ecosystem that helps to ensure that people can access the same quality of healthcare that we enjoy in the US.” OM