Dispensing student takes Varilux award

Yvonne O'Dowd was the recipient of this year's international Varilux University essay competition announced at Silmo Paris last week by Professor Mo Jalie from the University of Ulster and Varilux University.

Originally from Ireland, O'Dowd now lives in Paris and is in her final year of ABDO's distance-learning course.

Her essay, 'Presbyopia, the ageing of the eye', covered the development of the eye from infancy to old age, theories of accommodation and present and possible future methods of correcting presbyopia. The panel was unanimous in awarding the prize.

Emmanuelle Guthmuller from France was second for her essay on the assessment of low vision clients; David Gomez Lopez and Ana Maria Sanchez Cerdan from Spain came third for their essay on contrast sensitivity and colour perception in presbyopic subjects while Priti Doshi was fourth for her essay on the correction of presbyopia.

O'Dowd advised students to enter the competition. 'It can be very interesting and you learn a lot from researching the topic that can be useful in practice.'