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Diabetes and diabetic retinopathy: Changes in understanding of the disease over the last 25 years and how the UK is helping low-income countries tackle the challenges

Diabetes – a historical perspective Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic disease caused by inherited and / or acquired deficiency in production of insulin by the pancreas, or by the ineffectiveness of the insulin produced. Such a deficiency results in...

Ambitions for sustainable service recovery amidst an escalating post-COVID backlog

Rod McNeil reviews plans, activity and solutions to better address the post-COVID backlog and bolster sustainable service recovery. Ophthalmology was the busiest outpatient specialty during the three years to March 2020 across the English NHS and again recorded the highest...

Guide to Gaining Approval for a Clinical Study

This article focuses on gaining approval for clinical research involving NHS patients, although the principles can be applied to other types of research. The intention is to give an overview of the requirements for setting up a research study, but...

Eye Capacity: clinical need should drive ophthalmic service provision

Almost two million people in the UK suffer sight loss, a number forecast to double over coming decades. Major causes of blindness are age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, cataract and uncorrected refractive error. Prevalence of these sight-threatening conditions...

Well-presented scholarly research work will reduce chances of journal rebuttal

Submitting to an academic journal? Are you aware of the requirements and constraints of relevant copyright laws? Rod McNeil provides a guide for aspiring authors. Getting published in peer-reviewed academic and medical journals is not easy. But careful attention to...

The extended role of the specialist ophthalmic photographer

The prevalence of certain retinal conditions such as diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) is projected to grow substantially over the next decades. Estimates for the projected growth in burden on eye services for diabetic retinopathy and neovascular ARMD...

In conversation with John Forrester

What made you choose ophthalmology as a career and how did your interest in academia develop? During Medical School at Glasgow University, I was getting progressively disillusioned with the career options while my colleagues and friends all seemed to quickly...

Ophthalmic mentors: Professor Carrie MacEwen

Caroline (Carrie) MacEwen is a Consultant Ophthalmologist at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee, and Head of the Ophthalmology Department at the University of Dundee (Honorary Professor). She trained in Glasgow, Dundee and London. Carrie took over as President of...

Capacity-strengthening for diabetic retinopathy services in low- and middle-income countries

Introduction DR-NET eye health professionals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have, since 2015, been able to access training in diabetic retinopathy (DR) grading provided by Gloucestershire Retinal Education Group (GREG). GREG, led by Professor Peter Scanlon and based at...

Meeting the needs of older patients in optics

Fiona Anderson discusses the important role of community-based eyecare practitioners in meeting the visual needs of ageing patients. It has been well documented that today we live for longer. Statistics show in 1997, around one in every six people (15.9%)...

Treating minor eye conditions in optometry practices: is this a viable model for the future?

The role of the optometrist has expanded in recent years as community eye care services have changed. With the limited scope of general ophthalmic services (GOS) regulations in most parts of the UK, the funding to support additional care has...

Glaucoma care provision using a multidisciplinary approach: a personal view

This article is going to explain the secret to running an efficient multidisciplinary glaucoma service which will comfortably meet the demands of an ever-growing elderly population, within the confines of budgetary and clinical constraints, wherever the setting. This may be...