My first encounter came as a medical student. Under high magnification, I examined a colleague’s iris, the coloured part of their eye encircling the pupil.
I watched as the muscle fibres moved rhythmically, undulating between dilation and constriction. It looked like an underwater plant, swaying in a current.
Mesmerising. But in a busy university curriculum the experience quickly faded, to be replaced by the next clinical rotation. I forgot ophthalmology; “maybe orthopaedic surgery or emergency medicine are for me”, I thought.
