• Elias Papandreou, ophthalmologist and surgeon, was born and raised in Athens.  In 1998 he began his studies at the Medical School of the University of Ioannina after passing the National Examination. In August 2004 he received his medical degree from the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens with the grade “Excellent”. He completed his field service at Panarcadian Hospital and Megalopolis Health Centre between 2004-2006. He then went to Germany where he specialized in Ophthalmology at the “Stiftungsklinikum Mittelrhein” Ophthalmology Clinic in Koblenz, which is an academic hospital of the “Johannes Gutenberg” University of Mainz and at the Ophthalmology Clinic of the University of Cologne (Professors Kriegelstein, Kirchhof), where he completed his doctoral thesis.

   

  After obtaining his specialization in Ophthalmology and completing his military service, he returned to Germany. He worked at the Koblenz Ophthalmology Center (Mr. Schmitz Valckenberg, Mr. Derse, Mr. Papoulis) as an ophthalmologist (angestellter Facharzt), gaining experience in cataract surgery and refractive surgery. In 2013 he continued his specialization as a Clinical Fellow in the ophthalmology department of Central Middlesex Hospital, London, where he worked on retinal pathology and surgery as well as on the pathology and minimally invasive treatment of glaucoma. He then worked as a paid consultant (Cataract Fellow and Vitreoretinal Fellow) at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, the largest eye hospital in the UK in the cataract and vitreoretinal surgery departments where he specialized in cataract techniques and vitreoretinal and macular surgery. Since December 2016 he has worked as a salaried Vitreoretinal Fellow at the Royal Berkshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust where he completed his specialization in vitreoretinal surgery (Mr Vaughan Tanner) at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading and Prince Charles Eye Unit, Windsor. At the same time and until November 2017 he was an Honorary Fellow of the Cataract and Vitreoretinal Surgery Departments at Moorfields Hospital.

   

  In April 2018, he returned to Greece and took over the management of the retina department and the retina and cataract surgeries at the Athens Eye Center until the end of 2021. Since October 2019 he has been working as an ophthalmologist at EDOEAP. He examines at his practice at 17 Timoleontos Vassos Street, Mavili Square.

   

  Already during his medical studies but especially during his stay abroad, he showed a special interest in clinical research participating as a researcher in clinical studies both in Germany and the United Kingdom. He has numerous papers and oral presentations at Greek and international conferences. In 2014, he successfully presented his thesis in Ophthalmology at the University of Cologne entitled “Prognostic factors for functional outcome after vitrectomy with removal of the epiretinal and inner aphakic membrane for idiopathic epiretinal membranes”. He also holds the European Specialist Title in Ophthalmology (Fellow of the European Board of Ophthalmology, FEBO) since 2015. In October 2020, he completed his Postgraduate Diploma in Cataract and Refractive Surgery (Postgraduate Diploma in Cataract and Refractive Surgery) with distinction from the University of Ulster, UK. In September 2021 he received third place in the surgical video competition held during the Pan-European Retina Specialist Society (Euretina) Congress for his paper entitled 'What's behind door number 1?'

   

  He is a reviewer for the international journals PLOS One, Retina, and International Journal of Ophthalmology and a member of the Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft, the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, the European Society for the Study of the Retina (Euretina) and the European Society for Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ESCRS).

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