The change from being an optometry student to becoming a newly qualified practitioner is a hard one; individuals embarking on their careers are challenged in a number of ways, expected to adapt and perform in a progressively less supervised professional capacity and do so at speed. The Success Through Education Programme (Step) is a Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Companies educational initiative, devised to support optometry students as they transition to becoming newly qualified practitioners.
An additional element of the initiative is the Step Educational Grant offered by Johnson & Johnson to support talented students in completing an independent study. The process provides insight into the skill of research and helps build the students’ knowledge and understanding in the area of contact lenses.
Emma Cooney and Clare Campbell were selected as the beneficiaries of the 2016 Step Educational Grant. The two optometry students are from Manchester University and Glasgow Caledonian University respectively. They completed their grant projects this summer before heading into their final undergraduate year.
The impact of a comfort call
Cooney (pictured) first found out about the Step Educational Grant through her contact lens lecturer. With her dissertation already in mind, she felt it was a great chance to advance her knowledge.
Cooney’s study, entitled ‘The impact on retention figures with the introduction of a comfort call during a contact lens trial’, involved surveying 100 patients. A test group of patients received a comfort call during their trial, while a control group received no comfort call.
Cooney found that 70% of the group who received a comfort call were still wearing contact lenses four months later, compared to 60% of the group that did not. As Cooney points out, the beneficial impact of comfort calls raises commercial implications for the industry. She says: ‘Contact lenses have so many benefits over spectacles and the opportunity to provide patients with an alternative form of correction should be seized.’
Cooney says: ‘I enjoyed the research-led experience, and also the personal approach needed when contacting patients. I wanted to explore contact lens retention rates and the importance of keeping patients happy. Contact lenses have so many advantages over glasses, but drop out remains a big issue. I wanted to find out what the main causes of drop out were, especially since the category is growing but there’s still an industry wide issue of patient satisfaction. This study gave me a depth of understanding of the practical challenges faced by contact lens wearers.’
Soft lens deposits: Good or bad?
Campbell (pictured) studies at Glasgow Caledonian University, and credits her project with helping her develop skills crucial to success in the next steps of her career. ‘Step prepares you for your dissertation and gives you the depth of understanding for approaching problems in the industry differently.’
Campbell’s study asked ‘Are soft contact lens deposits good or bad?’ This gave her the opportunity to speak first-hand to a host of industry professionals and make independently informed predictions on the future of soft contact lens development. The question itself is intriguing, and also one which Campbell knew was very much at odds with some established academic opinions.
Campbell developed an online questionnaire to compare the views and experience of optometrists and contact lens dispensing opticians (practitioners) with those of university optometry students (students) graduating in 2016 and 2017.
To establish their level of experience, all practitioners were asked for their year of registration and the number of contact lens fits they perform each week. Anyone with limited or no experience in soft contact lens fitting was excluded from taking part. The students targeted had all completed modules in contact lens studies and were only asked questions appropriate to their level of experience.
Between practitioners and students, Campbell found, there was general consensus that deposits are bad for ocular health, with 83% of students and 62% of practitioners taking this view. Campbell explains: ‘The fully qualified optometrists weren’t so quick to damn the effects of deposits. This is likely to be because they see on a day-to-day basis that deposits aren’t causing problems. Practitioners drew on their personal experience to answer questions, rather than purely academic learning. This reminds us that each patient and their needs are individual.’
Campbell speculated that the lack of patient problems with deposits could be due to regular replacement of lenses (before they can start to cause a problem), improved cleaning methods or the properties of the lens material or the patient’s individual eye. As Campbell explains: ‘The drive to develop a lens material safe for extended wear resulted in silicone hydrogels, and though not originally intended, the adsorption (rather than denatured deposition) of lysozyme may be the first step in the development of infection resistant product.’
Both Cooney and Campbell attended Johnson & Johnson Medical headquarters, to present their findings and receive further feedback from established professionals across the Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Companies business.
The future of optometry
With future potential researchers being given a platform to shine through the Step Educational Grant, the Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Institute is playing a leading role in the education of optometrists. Sheetal Patel, manager Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Institute, feels this development is crucial for the field as a whole: ‘Clare and Emma’s experience adds further weight to the benefits of the Step Educational Grant as a chance to understand a specific part of the contact lens field, gain perspective when considering patient practice, but also see the importance and relevance of research in the field of optometry. Both students have valued their experiences with the project.
‘With this grant, and our entire Step programme, we aim to support the next generation of optometrists in providing excellent patient centred eye care.’
Entry into Step is based on a credit system – students can accumulate credits throughout their final undergraduate year through a number of means including attendance at the undergraduate course at the Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Institute and completion of digital based learning. Students with the most number of credits are offered a place on Step. The process of notifying students who have successfully gained a place will occur in April 2017.
More information on the Step Education Grant process and the Step programme can be obtained from university contact lens leads.