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Optometrist found guilty of manslaughter

To start our new Optometry section, editor Janet Pooley takes a look at the tragic death of Vincent Barker and asks what lessons can be learned. In August, Optometrist Honey Rose was found guilty of the manslaughter of eight-year-old Vincent...

Flashes and floaters in community optometry – diagnosing a posterior vitreous detachment

Managing patients who attend a practice with symptoms of flashes and floaters is a regular occurrence in community optometric practice. It’s often very distressing for patients; symptoms can be quite dramatic and an internet search can indicate imminent blindness from...

Developing community eye care: the GOS package in Scotland

In the second in the series about community eye care in the home nations, Janet Pooley explains how Scotland has developed its services within GOS. The United Kingdom has devolved healthcare; the powers were transferred from Westminster to Scotland and...

Launch of the Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service in UHWI Jamaica

At 2.55pm on Wednesday 16 March 2016 the first patient was screened and given her results in the new nurse-led Diabetic Retinopathy Screening (DRS) Clinic at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), Kingston, Jamaica. This was the result...

Sickle cell eye disease: an overview of vitreoretinal complications and their surgical management

Sickle cell disease is the most common genetic disorder worldwide and is associated with lifelong anaemia, intermittent pain and multi-organ morbidity. Ocular involvement can be associated with significant visual impairment due to the complications of proliferative sickle retinopathy (PSR). Occasionally...

Intravitreal injections delivered by ophthalmic clinical nurse specialists

Intravitreal injections of the anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) agent ranibizumab, for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was approved by National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) in 2008 [1]. The Manchester Royal Eye Hospital (MREH),...

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...

Changing the post cataract surgery review pathway – is patient safety compromised?

Cataract surgery continues to be the most commonly performed elective surgical procedure in the UK, with an annual rate of approximately 4150/100,000 people over the age of 65 accounting for a significant proportion of the surgical workload of most ophthalmologists...

How to examine the visual system Part 2: Accommodation, pupils, fundoscopy and additional tests

Examining the visual system can be a tricky skill for medical students to master, yet it is a task that is frequently tested in examinations. This is the second of a two-part series of articles, which together aim to improve...

An eyeful of independence

Scots will decide this September whether or not Scotland should be an independent sovereign state. “As all key areas of our business are already fully devolved, it’s very much business as usual for us,” noted a spokesperson for Healthcare Improvement...