Dr Kevin Highland always assumed he would have a career in engineering or computer, but a visit to his uncle’s office when he was in high school changed his mind: “My uncle Cyril Reifer got me interested in ophthalmology. He is also a retinal specialist and seeing the incredibly cool gadgets that he used for examining the eye inspired me to follow in his footsteps.”
Kevin, the older brother to Ryan, grew up in Edghill Heights, St Thomas, attending Erdiston Primary School and Harrison College.
He and his uncle share an office in Belleville, where they collaborate on interesting or challenging cases: “He has been really vital in me continuing my training after I left QEH.”
Kevin has certificates on his wall that are just as confusing to me as a doctor’s handwriting.
“MBBS stands for Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery. MRCOphth is short for Member of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists of London and FRCS (Glasg) stands for Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Glasgow,” he said, in explanation.
Kevin graduated from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica, and once he completed his MBBS he started working with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s Eye Department in 2001.
He has been on an interesting journey, including travelling to Chennai, India, to do cataract surgery (“Unfortunately when I was at QEH, it was difficult getting the theatre time I felt I needed to become comfortable doing cataract surgery independently. I went to India with a colleague of mine and in two weeks we did about 60 cataract surgeries – that really helped us build up our confidence”) and getting a fellowship to study at Oxford, during which period he became a member of the Royal College Of Ophthalmologists of London.
He calls getting into a surgical programme overseas “one of the biggest challenges” he had to face.
“I really wanted to get into an ophthalmology subspecialty fellowship surgical programme overseas. It’s an extremely competitive field, and you are competing with doctors from all over the world. It was because of Mrs Andrea Kerr, a senior Jamaican ophthalmologist I had met previously when doing an elective with her in Northampton in 2006 that I was able to make the connections with Oxford and later received a fellowship to attend the Royal College of Surgeons Of Glasgow. In short a lot of determined networking and hard work and pretty much looking for an opportunity anywhere once it presented itself has placed me where I am today.”
Kevin recently returned from spending the last two years doing specialised vitreo retinal training – the first year at the John Radcliffe Centre in Oxford and his second year following up as the senior ophthalmology vitreo retinal fellow at the Royal Derby Hospital. He said one of his most memorable moments there was “being present with pioneering eye surgeon Professor Robert MacLaren as he performed his “bionic eye” retinal implants in Oxford.”
Kevin, 39, is passionate about his work, and spoke of the many surgeries he has done so far.
“As a retinal specialist I am seeing a number of referrals for diabetics whose eyes have an advanced state of diabetic retinopathy. I am hoping to speak more about this condition and strongly encourage all diabetics to have at a minimum a once yearly retina check by their eye care specialist.
“Of course, glaucoma and cataract are also quite common. We are capable of doing precise optical measurements with a very sophisticated machine called an IOL master that when combined with advanced lens implant techniques allows us to reduce astigmatism and allows very predictable surgical outcomes.”
Kevin has done “advanced cataract surgery over ten years ago at the QEH, signing off on several hundred cases. Vitrectomy surgery has a very high learning curve, requiring mastery of cataract and anterior segment surgery first. My first year at Oxford was heavily supervised for months before being left alone on my own. It was not until my second year, though, that I was able to log over one hundred vitreoretinal cases before returning home earlier this year.”
He has had a number of interesting cases over the years and he remembers “in Derby I was called out to see a CEO of a company who had been struck in the eye with a golf ball shattering his glasses and the lens lacerated his cornea. I had to take him to theatre that night and repair the corneal laceration and inject intravitreal antibiotics.”
It isn’t all work and no play for Kevin, who is married to Dr Maria Chase-Highland, a general practitioner with an interest in paediatric medicine (“We met while both working at the QEH”). They have been married for seven years with fraternal twins Kris and Kayley, ages six.
“I love being outdoors, riding bikes and swimming with the kids and I am an enthusiastic car racer.”
The story goes that one Christmas Kevin bought an electric race car for Kris and ended up tinkering with it to get it to go faster. Before long he had bought a kit and met up with some other guys and they now race every Sunday at the Gymnasium at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex.
He excitedly explained: “The cars are quite expensive and precision is needed to get them to handle properly. They can easily reach speeds of about fifty miles per hour and require split second focus and concentration to drive or you quickly end up crashing spectacularly.”
Kevin says he has less time for partying and socialising than before and tries to find equal amounts of time to spend with the twins be it reading or doing school work and balancing that with disciplining them and also having fun.
“The hardest thing I had to do was leaving the children to further my studies and knowing that I would be away from them for two years was really stressful. They were now starting primary school and were placed in separate classes. It was a stressful time for the whole family. But they came up to London for both summers we were there and they truly loved the place and the time we spent travelling the country.”
“I don’t know how I would have done it without good family support. Without the support of my parents and my wife’s parents I would not have been able to go overseas to further my studies. My wife has been especially accommodating and I know it has been very stressful for her over the last few years. I try my best these days to help around the house. It is her turn now to finish her postgraduate studies.”
The interview over it was time for the pictures and as hard as it was to convince Kevin to do the interview as he is a very shy person, it was equally hard to get him to take the pictures.
“I have had to learn to improve my social and public speaking skills to allow me to communicate effectively with patients,” he said, laughing. “I am quite shy by nature but whenever I have a chance to talk about eye problems I never seem to run out of things to say.”
