The right staff

I am a big fan of Sir Richard Branson.  One of his well-known quotes is “you can’t do a good business with a bad person.  Find the right people to work with and you can’t go wrong.”  I love this quote and it is certainly one of my favourites.  I also like the way Branson treats his employees.

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A wonderful life

A short while ago I attended a service to celebrate the life of Dr David Cockburn OAM who passed away recently at the age of 91.  Many of David’s colleagues and friends were in attendance at this event, as well as some of his old patients from his optometry practice.  

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BCLA - Digital eye strain

Last month I attended the British Contact Lens Association (BCLA) Asia conference which was held in Hong Kong (in conjunction with the Hong Kong Cornea and Contact Lens Society).  It was an excellent meeting with over 200 delegates from all over the world in attendance and various topics were covered including myopia control, orthokeratology, scleral lenses, dry eye and paediatric contact lens fitting.  One of the best and most interesting seminars at the conference was a presentation given by Peter Kollbaum from the USA on the topic of ‘digital eye strain’.  

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Provision conference in Cairns

Last week my staff and I attended the the Provision National Conference in Cairns.  Over 400 optometrists from all around Australia were at the conference and the theme of the meeting was ‘relevance’.

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Daily disposables – the way of the future

Disposable soft contact lenses were launched onto the Australian contact lens market in 1989.  Interestingly, for a few years before the introduction of disposable lenses several companies had operated frequent replacement schemes, with the interval between lens replacements generally being three or six months.  These frequent replacement programs were not that successful and it was only with the introduction of disposable lenses – and the subsequent shorter interval between lens replacements – that the concept of ‘frequent lens replacement’ was truly embraced by contact lens patients.  

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The great outdoors and myopia

Last month there was an excellent article in Contact Lens Spectrum by David Berntsen in which the author summarized the recent studies that have demonstrated the protective effect of outdoor time against the onset of myopia.  

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Hydrogen Peroxide – the Forgotten Cleaning System

Hydrogen peroxide was introduced as a contact lens maintenance system in the mid 1980s.  At this time, it was seen as a major breakthrough in contact lens cleaning and disinfection, as previously patients had been required to use heat disinfection (which usually led to signification contact lens degradation and deposition) or chemical systems that incorporated preservatives such as thiomersal or chlorhexidine (which often led to adverse reactions from the eyes).

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When I was an optometry student at the University of Melbourne, one of my great memories is the outstanding clinical teaching I received when I started to see patients for the first time.  

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Welcome to our new optometrist, Jillian!

It is a pleasure to introduce Jillian Campbell, who commenced working with us a couple of months ago.  Jillian is originally from North Queensland and she did her optometry training at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.

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Annual Cornea Society and Eye Bank Meeting

My colleague Andew Huhtanen and I recently attended the 33^rd Annual Cornea Society and Eye Bank Meeting which was held here in Melbourne.  Once again, the top corneal specialists from here and New Zealand were in attendance.

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New registry for corneal collagen cross-linking

Our experience over the last 10 years with the corneal collagen cross-linking treatment (CXL) of keratoconus shows that this procedure is both safe and effective in halting the progression of the keratoconus.  We also know that the earlier this procedure is offered, the more likely it is to retard keratoconus progression.

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