A new initiative at Auckland’s Greenlane Clinical Centre is offering community-based optometrists and optometry students the opportunity to observe hospital eyecare and advanced contact lens-fitting with Te Whatu Ora Auckland’s optometry team. The funds raised from this will be earmarked to support continuous professional development (CPD) costs for the hospital-based optometry team.

Due to budget constraints, there is little to no funding for CPD activities at the public hospital, said Greenlane senior optometrist Vicky Wang. “Yet our team possesses abundant expertise and valuable insight to offer our community peers. Every patient provides an opportunity for learning, continuously challenging and refining our skills and understanding.”

Aimed at optometry or orthoptist students at any stage, as well as qualified community optometrists seeking to develop their clinical specialties, this is the first time Greenlane has been in a position of offer such access, said Greenlane’s allied health unit manager Carly Henley, who’s running the initiative. Programmes can be tailored to include the contact lens specialty clinic, as well as clinics for paediatrics, diabetes or glaucoma and post-operative cataracts. Participants can book sessions to fit with their work or studies within a set timeframe, including a certain number of sessions and a commitment to attend them all, said Henley.

The contact-lens fitting programme encompasses a variety of corneal pathologies, including keratoconus, post-refractive surgery, paediatric aphakia and other corneal ectasia cases, said Wang. It also includes topography-guided fitting using the department’s sMap 3-dimensional topographer. “The idea for the programme was sparked by 2023’s contact lens specialist course run by the University of Melbourne and attended by many local optometrists,” she said.

In terms of the level of observational versus hands-on involvement participants should expect, it is easier to provide observational sessions, given strict hospital criteria, explained Henley, but there is scope to work around this, within the participants’ comfort levels. All participants will need professional indemnity insurance and a health and safety induction will be conducted on their first day, she said.

In addition to raising funds for eyecare staff CPD opportunities and providing some real-world hospital experience for participants, another aim of the programme is to create stronger connections with community optometrists and future optometrists, said Henley. “Hopefully we’ll create a pattern of need to meet demand. The provision will adapt based on feedback we receive as the programme progresses.”

Bookings will be taken from March until the end of November 2024, with a charge of $150 for two sessions of four hours each, or a set contract price if the candidate is seeking a longer-term commitment. To secure a place on the programme, email Vicky Wang at vwang@adhb.govt.nz.