Greater attention needs to be given to children’s vision, believes the profession, as a recent survey by Mumsnet reveals that visits to the optometrist are lower down the agenda than dental visits. It found that 9% of parents saw no...
23 March 2020
| Gwyn Samuel Williams
|
EYE - General
I am writing this on 21 March 2020, and I am pretty confident that by the time you read this that whatever I say will already be hopelessly out of date. Plus, it’s only really what I think, and I...
Will ophthalmology recover from COVID-19? Learning Curve columnist Gwyn Samuel Williams shares his thoughts on the developing impact of the pandemic “It’s busy today,” the nurse in green chuckles. “There are six patients I think.” Six. This clinic is designed...
One of the side-effects of the coronavirus pandemic is that suddenly everything is now done on Zoom. In case anyone is fortunate enough to have no idea what this is, Zoom is an app that allows virtual meetings to take...
5 August 2020
| Gwyn Samuel Williams
|
EYE - General
The clinics at Ystradgynlais Community Hospital are a little different of late. The nurses are still there, I still get tea with custard creams and the letters I dictate are still all written up by the next day. But there...
5 October 2020
| Gwyn Samuel Williams
|
EYE - General
After a week on call grading what feels like 13 billion referrals I decided it might be useful to come up with a glossary that might help other people in some way to decipher the true meaning behind every repetitive...
Referrals between the many and varied branches of ophthalmology sometimes underline how sub-specialised we have all become nowadays. The old era when everyone was an ophthalmic jack of all trades is gone, for better or for worse, and instead of...
I like to read, but on account of the COVID-19 pandemic have probably read more over the past two years than ever before. One of the books that resonated the most was called The 900 Days and was about the...
One of the biggest changes brought on by far over the past two years is the emergence of Zoom, Teams, or a similar virtual platform for conducting the meetings we all know and love. There are many advantages, and also...
A 79-year-old male presented to the ophthalmic emergency department with a three week history of left eye pain. He also reported visual deterioration in the left eye over the same period. He suffered from degenerative myopia, with his spectacle prescription...
History A 27-year-old man presented to the emergency department with blurred vision and central scotoma in the right eye (RE) over the previous weeks. He had no relevant medical history and he was not on any current medication. However, he...
Neuro-ophthalmology is a complex and difficult subspecialty in ophthalmology. It has several connections to neurology, neuro-surgery, rheumatology as well as many other medical specialties. Working in an multidisciplinary team (MDT) environment is key to success in this subspecialty as mistakes...