- TFOS global ambassadors and international chapter affiliate
Thailand
Passara Jongkhajornpong
Passara Jongkhajornpong has been working as a consultant at the Cornea and Refractive Surgery Unit, Department of Ophthalmology, Ramathibodi Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand since 2015. She completed her Doctor of Medicine with first class honor from Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, and completed 3 years of internal medicine training at Suratthani Hospital and Baan Naderm Hospital, Suratthani, Thailand. She is certified in general ophthalmology by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists of Thailand and has a subspecialty certification in cornea and refractive surgery by the Department of Ophthalmology, Ramathibodi Hospital, Thailand. Passionate about the cornea and ocular surface, she applied for a grant from ICO-Fred Hollows Foundation One-Year Subspecialty Fellowship program in 2014 to study at Department of Ophthalmology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine (KPUM), Kyoto, Japan, which is the principal center for ocular surface disease, corneal transplantation and regenerative technology clinical research. Dr. Jongkhajornpong mainly treats cornea and ocular surface disease patients, including corneal infections, corneal dystrophies, corneal ectasia, dry eye, meibomian gland dysfunction and limbal stem cell disease. Additionally, she works in a contact lens clinic, which helps patients with corneal irregularity by using a rigid gas permeable lens, and she performs a wide range of corneal surgeries consisting of penetrating keratoplasty, deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty, Descemet stripping endothelial keratoplasty, Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty and limbal stem cell transplantation. Dr. Jongkhajornpong is a member of both the Cornea and Refractive Society and the Cornea Surgery Interesting Group of Thailand. She has published scientific articles regarding her interest in corneal dystrophies especially gelatinous drop-like corneal dystrophy and severe ocular surface complications due to Stevens Johnson syndrome (SJS). The association between particular genetic variation and severe ocular findings in SJS is also one of her interests and she still works on this project in collaboration with KPUM. She also lectures third and fourth year medical students, and ophthalmology residents at the Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, and was invited for several talks including ocular dystrophies, presbyopic contact lens, and ocular surface squamous cell neoplasm in Annual Meeting of Royal College of Ophthalmologists of Thailand. Great excitement in cornea and ocular surface drives her to keep practicing new surgical techniques and updating cutting-edge information every single day. Apart from the field of ophthalmology, Dr. Jongkhajornpong enjoys raising her baby, travelling with family, jogging for good health, and learning foreign languages, which has always been a favorite subject.