Letter: Newsworthy or not?

I read with interest the ‘Optometrist helps save patient with brain tumour’ article in the 7 Days section of the August 4, 2017 issue. I also thought back a couple of weeks to a story on the Optometry Today site that an optometrist found a patient had narrow angles with Van Herick and referred her for peripheral iridotomies. These sort of stories seem to crop up in our press reasonably frequently.

While I am pleased for the patients that these conditions were spotted, and occasional stories in the non-professional press that increase public awareness of what we do as a profession are obviously a good thing, it is a little frustrating to read stories about optometrists doing things they should be doing routinely (namely ophthalmoscopy and slit lamp) and discovering conditions that are part of our basic training.