‘A truly unforgettable experience’ is how Pablo Arlanzón Lopez and Laura Valencia Nieto summed up what being FORCE Students of the Year 2018 has meant for them.
They are both now studying for Master’s degrees in research and vision science at the Universidad de Valladolid, Spain. Speaking of their experiences, Valencia Nieto said: ‘The FORCE final encouraged us to continue with our studies and after completing our Master’s we hope to continue our research next year with a PhD.’
As part of their award, they presented their research at the 2019 BCLA Clinical Conference in Manchester. Arlanzón Lopez described this as a unique opportunity, ‘although we are quite young and only starting out in our research careers, we have already had our work presented at such a prestigious event.’
New Opportunities
FORCE (Future Ocular Research Creativity Event) is an annual competition in the field of contact lenses, pitching the very best students from colleges and universities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa against each other. The competition aims to inspire students to strive for excellence in their studies and to encourage them to develop their professional knowledge base and contacts to benefit their future careers.
Winners from each country go forward to the final for a chance to become FORCE Student of Year where the award is a full delegate package, including travel and accommodation, to attend an international contact lens meeting with the opportunity of having their project presented or published.
The winner is also invited to return the following year to describe their experience. Valencia Nieto said this was one of the best parts of the award and Lopez explained it meant they could meet new researchers and share different ways and views of practising and studying optometry across Europe and further afield.
Dublin graduate Christopher Burke represented the UK and Ireland
A Global Affair
Attending the event for the first time, Gary Orsborn, CooperVision vice president of global professional and clinical affairs, said it was an honour to be there. Welcoming the finalists he said: ‘There are many different directions and paths that you can take within this profession that open up a wide field of opportunities. It makes optometry and everything that we do as eye care professionals stronger.’ He continued: ‘I look at you and I’m inspired and I think about how great our future is.’ He commended them for taking the opportunity to excel in an area not everyone chooses and encouraged them to become key opinion leaders of the future.
Echoing his comments, Professor James Wolffsohn, chair of the judging panel, said: ‘This is the first stepping stone towards an exciting career and I look forward to seeing you all on stage around the world in the near future and over the coming years.’
Common Theme
Entries to the competition are invited for clinical trials, case reports or clinical paper reviews on a contact lens related subject and are judged on the evidence for and importance of the project, as well as the quality and clarity of the final presentation.
Each team has 15 minutes to present their project and a further 15 minutes to answer questions from the judges and fellow delegates. After the presentations, each team is interviewed on camera about their experiences of taking part and their plans for their future careers.
Topics this year ranged from putting the focus on the practitioner rather than the patient to measuring the effect on phorias of multifocal lenses with a number of projects following a common theme: linking risk factors for dry eye disease, contact lens discomfort and dropout rates to female patients.
Irish Eyes Were Smiling
Representing the UK and Ireland, Christopher Burke from Technological University Dublin presented the results of his final year project under the supervision of Dr Aoife Lloyd-McKernan and Orla Murphy.
He examined the effect of tea tree oil, baby shampoo and cooled boiled water on infestations of Demodex folliculorum in human eyelash follicles.
Winning the UK and Ireland final has enabled him to attend the BCLA conference in Manchester as well as visit CooperVision’s manufacturing sites in Southampton and Budapest.
‘For me, taking part in FORCE has opened up opportunities and built new relationships within the industry,’ said Burke. ‘It has shown me other avenues that I can explore alongside being a clinical
optometrist.’
The judging panel
Judgement Day
Judging the projects were researchers and clinicians Pascale Dauthuile (President of the Association Française des Experts en Lentilles de Contact, France), Elena García Rubio (Instituto Nacional de Optometria, Madrid, Spain) and Dr Eef van der Worp (Eye-Contact-Lens, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), along with the panel chairman Professor James Wolffsohn (Aston University, UK).
Speaking on behalf of the judges, Professor Wolffsohn said that the range and calibre of the projects as well as the quality of the presentations increases each year. He emphasised that being able to convey the message was as important as ‘good science’. ‘You need to be able to explain the “so what” factor.’ He explained that this will ‘embed people in your science, help influence change and inform clinical decision making guidance for practitioners in the future.’
And The Winners Are
Presenting the awards, Professor Wolffsohn said that the standard this year was very high: ‘It has been a marvellous competition and you put us in a really difficult position when trying to choose our top three presentations.’
Overall winner was Juliette Papin, a third year student from the Institut Supérieur d’Optique Nantes France. Papin’s project, supervised by Brigitte Couture, evaluated how phoria measurements were affected in patients wearing Biofinity Energys compared to Biofinity Multifocal contact lenses (see panel above).
Marianne Lindenberg and Cor Oosting-Klock from Hogeschool van Utrecht were awarded second place for their research into the content and frequency of contact lens hygiene instruction given by eye care professionals in the Netherlands while Aniket Saha from Bharati Vidyapeeth School of Optometry, Pune, Maharashtra, India, was awarded third place. His project considered whether current contact lenses meet the corneal physiological needs of both men and women equally.
Recognition was also given to Tsvetelina Mihova and Radoslav Slavov from Bulgaria for their stage presence and team work.
Awarding the overall award, Professor Wolffsohn complimented Papin on her presentation saying: ‘You set the scene really nicely, you had a solid study design and you explained the significance of your findings very well.’
He commended all of the finalists and added: ‘You’ve all come so far, you are all winners already by being here in the first place. This is not the end.’
Receiving the award Papin said: ‘I am so proud to be here and to be the winner. It’s a great opportunity for optometry in France and I hope it will create more opportunities for me in my future career.’ Her immediate plans include a six week internship at the University of New South Wales in Australia and commencing a Master’s degree when she returns.
What is her advice to future students considering entering the competition? ‘Do it!’
• For more information on FORCE and how to enter, contact CooperVision professional services or visit www.CooperVision-FORCE.com.
Papin receiving her award from Amanda Bogers, Coopervision professional services marketing manager Europe
Juliette Papin conducted a randomised, double masked crossover study on 38 pre-presbyopic subjects aged between 19 and 38 years fitted with Biofinity Energys and Biofinity Multifocal contact lenses. The effect on phoria measurements and visual quality as well as eye fatigue after prolonged digital device use was evaluated using the Wilcoxon test. Although further research is needed with a larger sample size and longer study duration, the results seem to show that Biofinity Energys lenses would help to reduce eye fatigue and provide satisfactory overall quality of vision while Biofinity Multifocal contact lenses would have a greater effect on reducing esophorias.
Teams and topics
• Tsvetelina Mihova and Radoslav Slavov, Medical University, Bulgaria
Supervisors: Andreev Jordan MD and Prof Grupchera Christina
The Effect of Zonal Multifocal Lenses with Distance and Near Design on Visual Field Parameters
• Beáta Kovačovicová, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Supervisors: Mgr Pavel Beneš, PhD and Mgr Gabriela Spurná
Comparison Values of Fusion Reserve Depending on Examination Technique Used
• Juliette Papin, Institut Supérieur d’Optique (ISO) Nantes France.
Supervisor: Brigitte Couture
Variation of Phoric Patterns in a Comparison of Two Contact Lenses: Addition vs Convex Effect
• Kathrin Stork, Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule, Jena, Germany
Supervisors: Prof. Wolfgang Sickenberger Dipl.-Ing. (FH) and Gunther Oesker MS Optom. (USA), Dipl.-Ing. (FH)
Time Recording in Contact Lens Practice of High Volume Specialists
• Marianne Lindenberg and Cor Oosting-Klock, Hogeschool van Utrecht, the Netherlands
Supervisors: Dr Jan Roelof Polling, Annemarie Brouwer and Dr Mirjam van Tilborg
Contact Lens Hygiene: The Untold Story
• Aniket Saha, Bharati Vidyapeeth School of Optometry, Pune, Maharashtra, India
Supervisor: Assistant Professor Mr Tonmoy Chottopadhyry
Specialised Contact Lenses for Women – Need of the Hour
• Francesca Treso, University of Salento, Italy
Supervisor: Professor Giancarlo Montani
Modification of Tear Film Osmolarity with the use of Contact Lenses in Omafilcon A and Methafilcon A Materials
• Alina Korzeniowska, University of Science and Technology, Wroclaw, Poland
Supervisor: Dr Dorota Szczęsna-Iskander
Evaluation of Environmental Risk Factors for dry Eye Disease
• Marina Marí Ribas and Abel Martín González, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
Supervisor: Professor Jesús Carballo-Álvarez
Variation of Optical Quality in Irregular Corneas after Soft Toric Contact Lens Fitting
• Emma Lundström, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden
Supervisors: Jenny Roth and António Filipe Teixeira Macedo
Short-Term Effects on Contrast Sensitivity and its Correlation to Over-refraction when Using MiSight 1 Day Contact Lenses
• Christopher Burke, Technological University, Dublin, Ireland
Supervisors: Dr Aoife Lloyd-McKernan and Orla Murphy
A Comparison of Treatment Regimens for Demodex Folliculorum Infestation of Human Eyelash Follicles
