The School of Medical Sciences, University of Hyderabad (UoH) organised Irvin Borish event on the occasion of World of Optometry Day on 23rd March 2021. An academic decathlon was organised via Google meet with various talks giving the research updates on academics along with tactical skills required for fresh graduates to conquer volatile job market. Close to ninety Optometry students from University of Hyderabad, practicing optometrists from state of Telangana and across the India participated in this event.
The day started with welcome note by Dr. Nagaraju Konda. Guest of honour, the Dean, School of Medical Sciences, Prof. Prakash Babu welcomed speakers, faculty and participants to the event and briefed social responsibilities of the health care professionals, including Optometry. Dean insisted on the primary responsibility of the Optometrists to educate the society on eyecare and importance of regular eye check-ups.
The Whole event was fractionated into three segments labelled with Community eye care service, Potpourri, and Optometry sprouts respectively. Dr. Srinivas Marmamula from L V Prasad Eye Institute, Vijay Kiran from Pushpagiri Vitreo Retina Institute, Vunnam Uma Bharathi, Sight savers India and Lalith Kumar Reddy from ALO, India were invited to deliver the lectures. Session on Community eye care service stressed upon the role of Optometrists in serving the community eyecare needs and was moderated by Ms Sheeba S. These enabled participants to view scope of community eye health practice, measures to cope eye screening during pandemic situation and planning and implementation of massive screening programs, and the alumni association role in serving the profession and community.
Dr. Gella Laxmi moderated the second session on potpourri. It was a mixed jar of clinical research update and diagnostic interpretation. The session had interesting talks on ‘How much of perception is limited by optics in keratoconus’ and ‘how to read Humphrey visual field report’ by Dr. Shrikanth Bharadwaj, L V Prasad Eye Institute and Deepmala Mazumdar, Rotterdam, Netherlands. This helped the participants to understand evidence based in-depth optics in keratoconus conditions including parameters such as aberration and binocularity impacts and diagnostic interpretation allured participants to learn detailed progression field analysis
The third session ‘Optometry sprouts’ was arranged especially for the fresh graduates and final year optometry students to make them aware of Industry expectations. Lectures with titles ‘Industry expectations from a fresh graduate’, ‘Win a job by communicating with a confidence’ was delivered by Industrial dignitaries Hareesh Potluri from Zeiss India and Satish Rao Perumahanthi from Lawrence & Mayo. These talks enlightened the participants on important essentials for a fresh graduate to conquer the interview during placements. Dr Nagaraju Konda gave an update on COVID-19 infection spread and effective measures to follow in the optometry practice.