In Contact - April 2006
Seeing the Light?
As you know I have long preached the need for balance in things optometric. I've also commented on and challenged the monocular eccentric fixation that educators and legislators seem to have developed as far as pathology, diagnostics and therapeutics are concerned. Apparently at the cost of other aspects of real, coal face optometric practise.
Some agree with my view but have largely been reluctant to ?stand up? in case the dreaded secateurs are applied to their exposed ?tall poppy? appendages.
They seem more than happy for Saks to keep sticking his neck out, on their collective behalf?
Most Kiwi practitioners and indeed optometrists the world over, are familiar with Lou Catania. he's been a legend in Ocular Disease and Therapeutics over the past two or three decades. he's lectured here and been highly rated internationally, so much so that he was voted one of the top ten most influential optometrists by Review of Optometry journal. Many of those behind the push to follow the ?medical? and therapeutic model in NZ were probably strongly influenced by him. Our signed office copy of his text Primary Care of the Anterior Segment is regarded as one of the important reference works referred to by all of us on a regular basis.
I must admit to being more than a little surprised when out of the blue I received an email from a colleague asking if I'd heard about Lou Catania's comments in the latest edition of Australian Optometry.
My correspondent went on to say that the guru of therapeutics implied that optometry courses had been driven in the direction of ?sexy? medical-eyecare at the expense of what we can claim to be: Experts at vision care.
The writer concluded that it was the most shocking article they'd read in years.
Lou of all people! Mr Therapeutics himself telling a few home truths?
I was flabbergasted, to say the least.
It didn't take long to track down a copy of Australian Optometry. [March 2006 Vol. 27, Number 3].
I read with mounting interest the article ?LOU CATANIA POINTS HIS FINGER AT THE SCHOOLS? by James Dimond that features an interview with Lou. I suggest every practitioner, legislator and educator - no matter their view - reads the full article.
A few salient quotes are;
??they should be careful not to let therapeutic drugs distract them from their primary role as vision care specialists.?
he's also quoted as saying ?don't lose sight of what we are. We are a vision care profession and we must continue to promote ourselves and put ourselves forward to the public and our patients as the, not a, but the vision care specialists,?
Dimond also paraphrased some of Lou?s comments thus; ?Learn from the US experience?stay focused on our primary role in the community?too much emphasis had been placed on therapeutics ?it had distracted the profession from its primary role?
Lou will be speaking at the Queensland Vision conference in April ?06 and reckons delegates will be confronted by a changed man.
?Professionally, I think it has been a bit of a negative ? and I guess I have license to be able to say something like that, having bled for so many years for the cause.?
I'm told he's also a keynote speaker at the NZAO conference in October ?06.
If they?ll still have him and his heretical new views!
Most important in my view was this comment from Lou. ?I think we redirected the profession more than we expanded it??
that's exactly what I've been trying to get across to the profession, legislators and academics, for some years.
Expand the profession of Optometry.
don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Keep teaching the core skills of optometry, contact lenses, binocular vision, child vision, behavioural optometry, low vision, dispensing, pathology, physiology, diagnostics, etc. By all means add therapeutics, but not at the cost of our primary role.
Lou was also quoted as saying; ?Yes, they come to us with red eyes and they come to us with glaucomas and they come to us with pain and suffering but really, the reason for our being, in their minds and hearts, is good quality vision care?.
Someone said ?He sounds like you Saks! Are you sure you didn't write all this??
Mass Debate
Unfortunately academics have seemingly been unwilling to discuss or debate these issues. The same could be said of the NZAO, Board and associated Ministries.
?Extremists? have been allowed to run roughshod over the majority of the profession, without the necessary checks and BALANCES.
They have now driven our fine profession ? the art and science of optometry - to a fairly extreme swing of the pendulum. It will now take much sweat and tears to bring back the equilibrium we so badly need.
Just as we see in World Conflicts, extremists push things too far one way. Other activists and polarised radicals then try and shift it back the other way. If we're fortunate we get back to equilibrium, without too much bloodletting but more often than not other factors and vested interests take advantage of the imbalance and shift it too far to the other extreme?
It's great to finally have one of the world?s hot shot leaders stand up and confirm what I've been trying so hard to get across, for so many years.
Maybe more people will take notice now?
I've met Lou before, used his text book and attended his lectures. I respected him greatly all this time. he's gone way up in my estimation now that he's had the gumption to voice these contrary views - having had the benefit of wave-front guided, aberration controlled hindsight.
Goodonyamate!
I look forward to discussing these issues with him, if possible, when he visits NZ in late 2006.
Priorities
There were many other issues I'd planned to get into this month. Fortunately they can wait as they?ll still be relevant in the May edition - prior to the launches of some amazing new products. Some of you had a preview of things to come at the CCLS meeting in February [reported elsewhere in this issue] as well as at the IOPA-EYEPRO conference in Wellington in March. I enjoyed presenting at both meetings and collegially interacting with like minded individuals.
I always learn from preparing such talks.
We had a great weekend in Wellington. It seems to get better every year and at every one of my visits these past thirteen years. The new Waitangi Park, close to the Te Papa precinct, seems to be a great venue and a great success.
Maybe the Dorkland Developers should take note when they develop the Dockland Tank Farm?
Our visit to Windy Wellington coincided with the last weekend of the New Zealand International Arts Festival. Waitangi Park featured dozens of the amazing ?aerial? views of our wonderful planet by renowned photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
Check out the various sites linked at this portal, especially the ?Earth from Above? images that were featured in the open air, in very large format.
Tres Magnifique!
We also had some fun on our rented Segway?s.
Now there's one solution to the fuel and congestion crisis.
I have my eye on the new ?off road? XT version?.
Now if we could just find out how to ?hack? the damn things and get a bit more speed out of them. The pedestrian 20km/h is a bit too slow for a ?petrol head? like me.
Yeehah!
For more information or any comments email Alan at incontact@optom.co.nz.