It’s been a big year for the 2014 CooperVision FORCE Student of the Year. Since winning the award last April, Umberto Bassi has a new job, an academic post at his former university in Milan and the experience of attending a global optometry conference.
Bassi has also been a great ambassador for the FORCE event, working with CooperVision Italy to find the 2015 national winner.
This year’s finalists were no less knowledgeable or passionate about their future profession. Teams from nine countries competed for the title, each having won their national finals.
FORCE (Future Ocular Research Creativity Event) is an annual competition pitching students from colleges and universities all over Europe against each other. Each student undertakes a six- to eight-week research project on a contact lens-related subject and presents the findings at a national event.
Winners from each country then go forward to the European final for a chance to become CooperVision FORCE Student of Year. The overall winner receives a full delegate package, including travel and accommodation, for a major international contact lens meeting.
The aim is to inspire students to strive for excellence in their studies, and develop their professional knowledge base and contacts to benefit their future careers. There are also advantages for their colleges and universities, in awakening an interest in research and recognition for their educators.
Above all, the final offers a unique opportunity for the students to mix with their counterparts from across Europe and forge lasting friendships across borders.
Hungary hosts
This year’s FORCE final took place in Budapest, Hungary in April and was the first to be held since the Cooper Companies acquisition of Sauflon was completed in December 2014.
Opening the event at the company’s award-winning Center of Innovation on the outskirts of the city, UK & Ireland professional relations manager Karl Aberdeen said FORCE was about identifying the thought leaders of the future. ‘Each one of you is representing your country. You are the best of the best,’ he told students.
After taking a tour of the former Sauflon manufacturing site where the education centre is located, the teams faced a challenging day presenting their projects to a panel of international contact lens specialists and answering questions.
Most had opted for a clinical or laboratory study although one team, from the Netherlands, which was represented at the FORCE final for the first time, presented a review paper. Strong themes among this year’s projects were multifocal contact lenses, dry eye, patient compliance and sports applications
Eye-opening experience
This year’s overall winner was the UK representative Fiona Buckmaster, a third-year optometry student at Glasgow Caledonian University, for her study into the effects of environmental conditions on tests of tear production (see panel).
Her success in the FORCE final is a second win for Glasgow Caledonian University. In 2013 Michelle Snowball, also supervised by senior lecturer Dr Ian Pearce, took the top award.
‘It was such an honour to represent the UK so to win is just incredible,’ said Buckmaster. ‘The whole experience has opened my eyes to some of the opportunities that are available through doing research and through meeting with people from different aspects of optometry.
‘Different countries across Europe excel in different areas within the market and I definitely learnt a lot from listening to everyone else’s presentations.
‘It was also great just to have the freedom to come up with your own research study. It forces you to think scientifically but the process also brings out your creativity. CooperVision is providing a unique opportunity for students across Europe. It’s a fantastic experience.’
Next spring Buckmaster will travel to the 2016 NCC (Nederlands Contactlens Congres) in Holland and, as national winner of Student of the Year, would also be attending the British Contact Lens Association’s Clinical Conference, courtesy of CooperVision. ‘Going to two major clinical conferences – that’s really exciting,’ she said.
Runners up were acknowledged this year, second place going to German student Antje Brenner for her survey of compliance in daily disposable lens wearers. Brenner found relatively high levels of compliant behaviour, other than returning for aftercare visits. But only 8 per cent of wearers were fully compliant with all procedures.
In joint third place was Benoit Pelatan, who looked at the influence of near dominance on clinical performance and patient preference with combinations of centre-near and centre-distance Biofinity Multifocal designs.
Also placed third was the Dutch team, Remke Sep and Maikel Vermeer from Hogeschool Utrecht, for their review of soft multifocal lenses versus orthokeratology as an effective therapy against myopia progression in children.
All winners
Announcing the results at a dinner on the final evening, chairman of the judging panel Nick Rumney congratulated all the students on their achievements. ‘You have worked hard, been given great guidance and have struggled with the notion of presenting in public and in a foreign language. This is a mix most ordinary optometrists would run kilometres from!’ he said.
But there could be only one FORCE Student of the Year. ‘Fiona challenged orthodoxy by overturning our understanding of a technique we thought was familiar. She approached the subject rigorously and scientifically, and she designed an elegant experiment which was, at heart, simple but gave results and conclusion of great clarity.’
Rumney added: ‘CooperVision is to be congratulated on maintaining this unique cross-Europe competition, which goes from strength to strength. FORCE is very much a force to be reckoned with and is a great vehicle for cross-country collaboration and young optometrist development.’
And the search for the 2016 FORCE Student of the Year? It’s already begun…
Visit www.coopervision-force.com
The winning project
Several studies have investigated the effects of different humidities on the tear film, many of them using the Schirmer test. But researchers have neglected to consider the effects of these conditions on the test itself.
Fiona Buckmaster used a controlled environment chamber to conduct tests at relative humidity (RH) ranging from 5 to 95 per cent, using standard Schirmer strips and Schirmer strips sheathed in a plastic film to reduce the effects of evaporation.
[CaptionComponent="1357"]In vitro testing found a clear increase in Schirmer wetting length as RH increased. Sheathed test strips were much less affected by changing RH. In vivo data showed that participants with severe dry eye were less affected by changes in RH than 'normal' participants.
Her conclusion was that those with borderline results (10-15mm of wetting) may be falsely diagnosed as having dry eye disease if their tests are undertaken in a low humidity environment. This issue may be overcome with the use of plastic sheathing.
The finalists and topics
[CaptionComponent="1358"]Joint third place
- Markéta Šmoldasová, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. The effect of chlorinated water on the tear film
- Benoit Pelatan, Institut Supérieur d’Optique, Bordeaux, France. Does the near-dominant eye influence the choice of multifocal contact lenses?
Joint third place
- Szilvia Tömöri, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary. Contact lens wearing habits of physically active, dry-eye patients
- Barbara De Bortoli, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy. New materials for antibacterial contact lens cases: silver ions (Ag+)
- Remke Sep and Maikel Vermeer, Hogeschool Utrecht, the Netherlands. Soft multifocal contact lenses versus orthokeratology as therapy in myopia control.
Second place
- Antje Brenner, Beuth Hochschule für Technik Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Compliance of German daily disposable contact lens users: a web-based survey. It’s better than we thought.
First place
- Joanna Kostanska-Nowacka, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland. The influence of contact lenses on condition of the anterior part of the eye in patients with type I diabetes mellitus, including wearer comfort
- Francisco Jiménez and Beatriz Cabrera, Universidad de Granada, Spain. Comparative study of multifocal contact lenses and multifocal intraocular lens implants
- Fiona Buckmaster, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK. The effects of humidity on tests of tear production.
The judges
Dr Dorota Szczesna-Iskander, Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
Giancarlo Montani, Bari, Italy
Bo Lauenborg, Aarhus, Denmark
Nick Rumney, Hereford, UK