Anglia Ruskin technician Tino Ficarra has built a new teaching aid to help optometry students brush up their clinical skills.
The head, known as Iris, enables students in the early stages of learning to improve their investigative techniques without having a patient sitting at the work station for long periods. Iris has lenses in its eyes connected to removable metal tubes. Teaching staff can assess students' abilities by placing images at the end of different length tubes to mimic different disorders.
Ficarra said: 'Iris is a really useful tool for students, who can be asked to identify different images that have been placed in her eye. This could be letters, symbols or anything else we wish to use.'
Iris can be mounted on a custom frame for retinoscopy and direct ophthalmoscopy examinations, and positioned on a slit lamp for indirect ophthalmoscopy.
Dr John Siderov, head of Vision and Hearing Sciences, believes Iris will prove to be a valuable teaching aid. 'We are always on the lookout for new methods to improve teaching and learning in our department,' he said.