Moises Enghelberg
Research at TouroCOM: Ophthalmology; Medicine as an art form
Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, Moises Enghelberg was inspired by his great-grandfather, an Ob/Gyn in Romania, who survived a concentration camp in World War II. “He crossed the Atlantic with his medical school diploma stitched into the lining of his coat, and he set up a practice in a rural village in Venezuela. I grew up listening to his audacious stories and his passion for medicine, and I am still, to this day, mesmerized by his tales.”
Dr. Enghelberg pauses. “I guess I just wanted to come close to that sense of valor.”
At the age of 17, he and his family immigrated to Miami, Florida, and he joined TouroCOM after completing his undergraduate studies at Florida International University, where he studied anthropology and sociology.
And if his unique choice of majors is surprising, Dr. Enghelberg will be the first to explain how medicine, being the performance of healing, “should be considered a proper art form.”
“In all of my articles, I strive to reconcile the arts and medicine. Because even when shrouded in its armor of tediousness and technicality, medicine is, indeed, very much an aesthetic.”
Ophthalmology, for Dr. Enghelberg, is the medical specialty of light. He explains that for him, "nothing is more interesting than trying to understand light, its variations and wavelengths, color and saturation. What could be more beautiful than holding somebody’s gaze?”
Now, Moises’s research focuses on the anterior segment of the eye. When he was exposed to cataract and anterior segment surgery during his fourth-year rotations “I saw that the iris got traumatized greatly. Everyone knows that the iris is very delicate, but I was interested in why it wasn’t healing or recuperating like other parts of the eye, so I started exploring.” His contributions? Layers and organizations are quintessential to healing. The anterior part of the iris doesn’t have organized layers, as opposed to its posterior counterpart, which is composed by layers of stem cells and pigment so it is better suited to withstanding trauma. This configuration contributes to its poor healing potential.”
While Enghelberg’s ophthalmology articles (The Iris and Its Regenerative Potential, Digital Journal of Ophthalmology, 2015; Charles Bonnet Syndrome From a Psychosomatic Perspective, Psychosomatics, 2014) are still under peer review, his research on medicine’s relationship to the humanities—Towards a Medical Aesthetic and Its Performative Nature and Osteopathic Medicine, Touch and Psychoanalysis: At a New Crossroad—has been published in the Journal of Medical Humanities and Hektoen, respectively.
Dr. Enghelberg matched to his first-choice residency in Ophthalmology at Larkin Community Hospital in Florida, close to his home in Miami.
First “physician” moment
“It came during my Internal Medicine Sub-Internship. I was doing the night shift and it was rather slow, so I took a stroll down to the Emergency Room. A 28-year old alcoholic male was bleeding profusely from his forehead. Nobody was taking care of his open wound, so I actually volunteered to suture his forehead. I knew exactly what to ask for: “1% Lidocaine with epninephrine, 1 18G loading needle, 1 27G needle in a 5ml syringe, 6-0 vycril and 6-0 nylon, and of course a suturing tray.” After I successfully performed the procedure, the sense of satisfaction I received was incredible. All those hours spent observing and assisting my mentors in surgery had actually paid off in some handsome stitches. Medicine is an exercise between knowing, and knowing with confidence.”
