My top five: Trinkets of fact or fiction

Trinkets of adult wisdom are often delivered to children alongside warnings of catastrophic outcomes. In this article we present five ‘facts’ about eye health and vision and ask the question: to what extent are these ideas backed up by literature?...

WHO SPECS 2030: a global initiative to strengthen refractive error services

Globally, it is estimated that only around one-third of people with vision impairment due to refractive error have received access to a quality pair of spectacles [1]. In recognition that uncorrected refractive error is the leading cause of vision impairment...

Insights on medical AI for ophthalmology: an update on current perspectives

Artificial intelligence (AI) has immense promise for revolutionising medical practice. Generative AI is a form of AI in which algorithms are trained on datasets that can be used to generate new content, such as text, images or video based on...

Are social media promoting ocular protection in the community?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many countries worldwide introduced lockdown measures to control infection, causing people to spend more time at home. This resulted in reports of increasing incidences of do-it-yourself (DIY)-related trauma. When the Covid-19 pandemic started in December 2019,...

The Escape Room and gamification of ophthalmology teaching

Recently, there has been an interesting development in medical education and its ‘gamification’. Educators are constantly looking for new ways to engage their students by adding a friendly element of competition, as evidenced by the great success of online education...

Part 1: The Arclight Project – Frugal tech for sight

Click here for Part 2 on this topic, and here for Part 3 The Arclight Project is a mix of frugal design, manufacturing, distribution, teaching, research, and advocacy, all wrapped up in a social enterprise based at the University of...

Virtual ophthalmic conferences: learnings from the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic was the catalyst for a number of paradigm shifts in numerous industries. The demand for proxies that follow social distancing measures created a hotbed for digital solutions and transitioned these to social convention. In the aftermath, the...

The All Eyes Foundation

At its core, All Eyes Foundation (AEF) wishes to help bring vision back to Iraq, and it intends to do this through ophthalmic subspecialty training, mentoring and infrastructure development. Based in Najaf, just over 100 miles south of Baghdad, the...

Strabismus and ocular motility, demystified

I am a former orthoptist, now trained in medicine and working as a foundation doctor. In my previous work, I was frequently approached by ophthalmology trainees eager for guidance with strabismus and ocular motility. Drawing on my clinical experience, I...

100 years since Sir William Duke-Elder graduated from the University of St Andrews

With sincere thanks to Andrew King, Ophthalmic Optician and owner of Andrew King Opticians near Glasgow, for his extensive research into Duke-Elder’s life.' Sir William Stewart Duke-Elder. Photo credit: Edward Irvine Halliday, Institute of Ophthalmology. In the world of ophthalmology,...

The REAL Clinic: a dual-purpose model

Naveen and Robbie discuss the benefits that come with a clinic offering both ophthalmic and plastic / cosmetic surgery services at REAL, a purpose-built clinic near Battersea Power Station, South London. Not unlike plastics / cosmetic surgery, ophthalmology is changing....

Blinded by an Ofsted inspection

Introduction The Association of Health Professions in Ophthalmology (AHPO) is a charity, whose objectives are to promote the practice, education, training and research in ophthalmology and vision science in the UK. The extraordinary developments in diagnostic equipment and technologies have...