Last month saw one of the best ever results for Team GB at an Olympic Games. The achievements of the athletes made even more special as they were probably unexpected. Team GB worked hard to achieve amazing results in 2012, but have gone on to even bigger and better results this year. Fingers crossed the Paralympics GB team can continue these successes.
The medal-winning athletes quite rightly receive plaudits for their superb performances. They have to spend years training, often facing great sacrifices, and potentially for little or no reward. They dedicate themselves to their chosen discipline with the aim of being the best in the world.
However, most athletes do not achieve this alone. The top athletes have plenty of natural ability and, of course, the passion and drive they need in order to become one of the best. Elite athletes also need a support team to help become ‘the best’. Let’s take Team GB’s Andy Murray as an example. Tennis is clearly an individual sport, but the two-time Wimbledon and Olympic Gold medal winner would not be where he is without his support team.
‘Team Murray’ includes his coach, a physical trainer, a physiotherapist, and a nutritionist, among others, all working full time to achieve one singular goal – for Andy to perform to the best of his ability. I shouldn’t forget to mention possibly the most important member of Team Murray, his mum Judy, who saw his potential when he was young, and gave him the encouragement to pursue his professional career.
I see plenty of parallels between successful athletes and optometry.
Sometimes as an optometrist it can feel a little bit like being the medal-winning athlete. Most of the time, it is the optometrists who receive the praise for providing a sight-improving prescription, or the discovery of pathology. But in reality it is much more a team effort. I know I couldn’t do what I do in practice without the fantastic team of colleagues who help look after our patients and ensure they receive the best levels of service. This includes the ‘back-room’ colleagues, who ensure administration is completed, and the lab colleagues who actually create the finished products.
In my practice, we all work together as a team to achieve the best results for our patients, even if they do not appreciate that so many people are involved in something as routine as making a pair of glasses. We constantly have to keep improving, and don’t accept complacency – we always strive to be better.
As I write this column most children will be returning to school. In my practice this means that over the past few weeks (or in some cases days) there has been an increase in parents seeking last-minute sight tests or replacement glasses for their children before term starts. Especially those who lost or broke their glasses at the end of the last term, and have been overdue their sight-test for a while.
A positive aspect to this is that it now seems that instead of children being disappointed when they are told that they need glasses (as often happened when I was a child) it is more likely that children are now disappointed when they told that they do not need glasses, which can only be a good thing.
Of course, the majority of parents appreciate the importance of keeping on top of eye care for their offspring, but for one reason or another there is always that last minute rush from a significant proportion of these patients. More worryingly, there is still a large percentage of children who do not attend regular sight tests, which then continues into adulthood.
This represents one of the challenges we have as a profession, whereby the public do not seem to put as much importance on their ocular well-being as other aspects of their health. At the coalface, it is up to us to deliver this message every day in practice, so that over time the public understands and appreciates the whole range of services optometrists provide.
This month provides ample opportunity to do this with National Eye Health Week and with the launch of the Specsavers and RNIB campaign to transform the nation’s eye health. In my practice we will continue to encourage people to have regular sight tests, especially for those who, for one reason or another, haven’t had one for many years.
Ross Campbell is ophthalmic director of Specsavers, Richmond, North Yorkshire.