Scope Expansion Training for Optometrists to be Offered at UKZN soon

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The Department of Optometry at UKZN’s Westville Campus, in collaboration with the State University of New York (SUNY), will soon offer a course for scope expansion training for optometrists in South Africa. 

The expanded scope for optometrists to prescribe therapeutic drugs to patients was recently approved by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA).  

Optometry academics in South Africa currently do not have sufficient experience and training in prescribing therapeutic drugs therefore in partnership with UKZN, the academics from the State University of New York (SUNY) will provide the Ocular Therapeutics modules while the Public Health module will be presented by the local faculty as part of a post graduate course.  

A refresher course on the basic medical sciences was conducted last month by Dr Ann Beaton and Dr Brian Hall from SUNY to help prepare practitioners review their foundation knowledge required for the upcoming therapeutics course. 

Academic Leader and Senior Lecturer at the Optometry department at UKZN, Ms Vanessa Moodley, who is responsible for initiating the collaboration, explained that ‘eye care services in South Africa are grossly inadequate, particularly for the underserved rural populations.  We have a high prevalence of ocular diseases and as evidenced in many countries globally, optometrists with ocular therapeutics competencies can make a significant contribution in the management of preventable blindness and making eye care services more affordable’.  

There are around 3000 optometrists across the country who will need to do the course in order to get the required licence to practice ocular therapeutics.  

‘The scope expansion is the dawn of a new era for optometry in South Africa,’ said Moodley. ‘The department will also review and amend the current undergraduate curriculum towards graduates in the near future, exiting with the expanded scope.  As a department, we are committed to being socially accountable in our curriculum, teaching, research and service, remaining locally relevant as well as internationally comparable.  Hence, this international benchmarking initiative with SUNY, is one of the leading optometry programmes in the United States.’ 

Dr Jeffrey Philpott and Dr Guilherme Albieri joined the team from New York and conducted a strategic planning session with the UKZN optometry department to expand on the partnership.  Additional areas of the collaboration that emerged were a residency/externship programme to allow students from the United States to stay and work at UKZN to gain experience while also sharing their knowledge with local students, joint research projects, PhD study opportunities for local staff and access to SUNY’s Chronus Mentoring Software Pprogramme for Undergraduate Student Academic Development. 

The UKZN Optometry department plans to commence the programme next year, making it the first institution in South Africa to offer this expanded course to the profession. 

Zakia Jeewa