Dr. Marco Sales

Once at medical school, in the fourth year of my degree, she “asked” me to help her in the operating theatre. A help that, today, I know I didn’t need, but which made you feel responsible and forced you to study and prepare for all the surgeries in order to measure up. Almost unconsciously, during the following four years (three of my degree and one of preparation for the MIR), I had already learned most of the surgical techniques of oculoplastic, assimilating the difficult surgical manoeuvres as something natural, as the “normal” way of doing things.

In order to become an ophthalmologist, you need to get a good score in the MIR examination and, especially, to be eligible for the most prestigious hospitals. In my case, I wanted to specialise at the Ramón y Cajal, the hospital where the choices for placements ran out first, at that time, generally in the first 100 numbers. I got the placement and, there, I completed my training as an ophthalmologist.

During these 4 years I was lucky enough to train with leading ophthalmologists in each of the subspecialties (retina, strabismus, glaucoma, etc.). In addition to continuing to assist and accompany my mother in surgeries throughout my training, I attended maxillofacial surgery operating theatres, had the opportunity to learn in Brazil and France with leading oculoplastic ophthalmologists, and rotated 6 months in craniofacial surgery in Paris. All this provided me with a very complete training, having performed, during my specialisation, techniques reserved for prestigious specialists with a considerable professional career.

As an assistant specialist, I was able to continue working in the orbit and oculoplastic unit of the Ramón y Cajal Hospital. There I was able to be in charge of and undertake complex orbital pathology cases, as it is a national reference centre (CSUR) for orbital tumours and thyroid orbitopathies. Among the pathologies that the Ministry of Health considers should be treated in reference centres, two affect oculoplastic; tumours and thyroid orbitopathies, being, together with the Bellvitge Hospital, the only two national reference centres to treat these diseases.

Since the end of my internship, I have also been in private medical practice in the speciality. Here, apart from performing the same reconstructive and rehabilitative techniques as in the hospital, I focused on periocular cosmetic surgery, mainly blepharoplasties. The great specialisation in the periocular anatomical region has allowed me to develop the techniques of aesthetic surgery and rejuvenation of this area with precision, optimising the results and minimising possible complications.

And so the cycle closes. The passion that my mother managed to instil in me for her work has become my very own, and I try to transmit it by doing my very best and giving the best of myself to each and every one of my patients.