The University of Portsmouth has told Optician that its new Masters in Optometry course will not be aligned with any one business or equipment provider and that student intake would initially be limited.
Course project leader and associate head of education Dr Isobel Ryder said the university had chosen to remain independent because it wanted to set its own syllabus agenda.
‘When I originally wrote the business plan for the course, I didn’t want it labelled in any way. We are very much open in terms of who we want to work with. We would like to work with independent optometrists on practice placements, but we would also like to work with multiples too and have been in discussions with them.’
Course clinical adviser Andrew Matheson added that it was the university’s aim to be a ‘centre of clinical excellence’ and that the desire for independence extended into the specification of its clinical teaching laboratory, allowing the best individual pieces of equipment to be chosen.
Dr Ryder also told Optician that she expected the first intake to be a pilot year of up to 26 students, and that the future intake numbers were subject to approval from the GOC.
A feature on the course’s development will appear in a future issue of Optician.