Welcome from the Head of Department
Welcome to our second newsletter for 2018. We have had a very busy year to date in both teaching and research domains.
A specific highlight was the award of the David White Award for Teaching Excellence to Ms Anthea Cochrane. The David White Award is an annual, university wide teaching award, and recognizes Anthea’s longstanding contributions to the education and training of optometry students. I am also pleased to announce that university promotions have been awarded to Dr Christine Nguyen and Dr Holly Chinnery, recognising their sustained excellent contributions to our program.
Our final year OD students are rapidly approaching the end of their time with us. Their experience of optometry has been significantly guided by our clinical placement partners, our wonderful clinical teaching optometrists at UMeyecare, and their varying contacts with alumni and supporters of the program. Several of these events are highlighted in this newsletter. A big thank you to everyone who participated, and please get in contact if you would like to be involved in our program.
We have also been active in our education of graduate optometrists. Our fully online Master of Clinical Optometry is increasing in popularity, with two new subjects offered for the first time in 2018 (“Glaucoma and Retinal Disease” and “Anterior Eye Disease and Dry Eye”). Seventeen enthusiastic optometrists also spend a weekend at our recent Myopia Management Masterclass (see newsletter for highlights). In addition, we have our upcoming Seeing Beyond Lecture on October 3rd. Details are included in the newsletter and we hope to see you there.
This newsletter also highlights some of our recent equipment upgrades at UMeyecare. The state of the art equipment is being used for clinical care, research and teaching. Our research students have been busy travelling to conference and winning awards and contributing to the scientific knowledge base that is critical for future eyecare.
Professor Allison McKendrick
Head of Department
Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences