Given the rate of technological change, becoming the best practitioner in a certain field requires constant diligence and a desire to push the boundaries of the profession, bringing care to the under-serviced.
Indie Grewal, winner of Contact Lens Practitioner of the Year Award 2018, sponsored by Alcon, has an intense focus on the latest developments in the CL industry and uses new technology to enhance his patients’ experience. This has led to almost a third of his practice’s turnover coming from CL sales.
‘Whatever the CL market brings out that’s new and innovative, I will probably be one of the earliest adopters of that technology,’ he says. ‘Constantly keeping abreast with the latest developments and technology in the market is very important.’
He regularly attends BCLA conferences and events, and his practice runs its own clinical trials that add to the field of CL research.
Grewal says he was ‘surprised and elated’ at winning as he was not expecting it due to ‘some other great finalists’. While he says the recognition at the awards ceremony was very welcome, he adds that the process of applying for the award, and setting out a case for your recognition, helps you to ‘reflect on yourself as a practitioner and what you’ve done’.
‘I think it made me go back to what made me passionate about CL in the first place, and what keeps me passionate about them now,’ he says. ‘A few years ago, it was multifocals that excited me and then myopia management played a big part. Now, it’s fitting children with CL, regardless of their prescription.’
An important part of becoming a great practitioner is drawing on the skill and expertise of others, says Grewal. ‘I keep in touch with a lot of my peers: people I’ve met along the way and key people in the CL and optometry industry.
‘I think it’s important because you can read theory papers and try to make sense of them, but until you speak to a peer and see how you can apply theory into practice it can be a bit nerve-racking or challenging,’ he says.
One of the areas of Grewal’s work that impressed judges at this year’s awards was his focus on myopia management in children. He has adopted an effective approach to treating the condition in children using CL, which involves ‘an initial conversation and a soft approach to encourage a trial’. He finds that it most circumstances it is a case of changing parents’ perceptions, rather than those of children.
The only difference with treating children using CL is that ‘they need extra time to be taught how to apply, remove and care for their lenses’.
He first got interested in childhood myopia when he heard about Ortho-K. ‘I went on a course, read up about it and asked my peers about what they were doing and how they introduced it,’ he says. ‘I followed their example and it became an interest, almost obsession, of mine. That was followed by multifocals and then recently, in 2017, we got MiSight.’ [A daily disposable CL that is said to help correct myopia in children as well as slowing its progression.]
Since being given the award, Grewal has employed it as a promotional device. ‘It’s on our website and my email signature,’ he explains.
‘We’ve got screens that display it in the practice and the actual award is prominently displayed for all to see. It’s polished once a week,’ he jokes.
