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Building leaders for eye care in Africa: the COECSA-RCOphth VISION 2020 LINK

The VISION 2020 LINK [1] between the College of Ophthalmology of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (COECSA) and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth) has been building leaders of eye care in Africa since 2008, when a Memorandum of Understanding...

Capacity building for ophthalmic nursing in Ghana, Botswana and Tanzania

Ophthalmic nurses (ON) have been the backbone of eye health services in Africa since the mid-20th century and remain the largest single cadre of allied ophthalmic personnel in Commonwealth countries in Africa. Numbers are currently estimated at between 3500 and...

A personal reflection: working at the International Centre for Eye Health from 2006–2024

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been working part-time at the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) [1] since 2006. Earlier in my career, the responsibilities of work and a growing family made this merely an aspiration, and apart from...

The role of injection assistant devices in establishing a nurse-led AMD service

The author shares his experience of setting up a nurse-led service to deliver anti-VEGF intravitreal injections and how injection assistant devices supported training. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has become a leading cause of irreversible blindness [1]. It is estimated that...

Shifting the paradigm of managing patients in medical retina: how real-world data can help us to improve clinical practice

The ophthalmic subspecialty of ‘medical retina’ has undergone dramatic changes in recent years. With the introduction of ranibizumab (Lucentis, Novartis), a specialty formerly dominated by laser-based therapies has been transformed to become, in large part, pharmacotherapy-based. To date, these pharmacotherapies...

My experience of the transition into a specialist orthoptist role

Michelle Dent discusses the process of transitioning into a new role and the pros and cons along the way. An opportunity arose for a permanent, full time, band 7 specialist role in the medical retina (MR) team in the Newcastle...

Development of a modern surgical simulation suite to promote safer ophthalmic surgical training

For trainees, having access to surgical simulation equipment is more important than ever. The authors describe the creation of a bespoke teaching and training suite in Glasgow to help trainees develop their skills and promote surgical excellence. Simulation has become...

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...

Part 3: The Arclight Project: Implementation workshops

In this three-part series (Click here for Part 1 and Part 2) Andrew Blaikie and his team explore the role and application of the Arclight Device in Imaging of the Eye. The Arclight Project aims to support and enhance the...

The Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness: How ICEH maintains the cornerstone of global eye health data

In this paper we will discuss The Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB), a survey methodology that has become the single largest source of population eye health data globally. The origins of RAAB The RAAB is a rapid, population-based survey...

The International Centre for Eye Health: weaving the global threads together

The VISION 2020 LINKS & Networks Programme has been writing regular articles in Eye News about its capacity-strengthening activities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) for more than a decade. This, the first International Issue, is a landmark for Eye...