By Dr Dirk Booysen
A 41 year old Caucasian female consulted me for a routine examination. Her chief complaint was photophobia and poor vision. My examination revealed the following…

By Dr Paul Ramkissoon
It is not uncommon to find children who have low vision attending mainstream schools. These children have the mental capacity to cope with the educational demands; however, they still have to encounter visual challenges gallantly. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines a person with low vision as one who has impairment of visual functioning even after treatment and/or standard refractive correction, and has a visual acuity of less than 6/18 to light perception, or a visual field less than…

By Dr Paul Ramkissoon
The UV Burton lamp is a portable, hand-held, ultraviolet lamp used to examine the external ocular surface.  It has a black rectangular plastic housing containing an optically ground and polished magnifying lens of +4D to +5D strength with dimensions of 10cm by 7cm providing a clear viewing area. In addition, it includes 2 white fluorescent bulbs and 2 ultraviolet (UV) bulbs to examine the eye under white light and UV light respectively.

By Dr Alan Saks
There’s no doubt in my mind that finding a speciality niche in practice is one of the best, most rewarding things you can do in developing and safeguarding your career. The tentacles of commercial optometry are spreading ever wider. The competition for bums on seats and discounted sales of spectacle frames…

By Dr Tom Arnold
A 45-year-old woman present for a contact lens evaluation.  She had undergone radial keratotomy twenty years before.  Her chief complaints were poor night vision, especially when driving, starbursts, and reading in conditions of low light and dry eyes.

By Tania Moore
When Mr. Oosthuizen walked through my door, the first thing I noticed was his completely opaque left cornea. It was particularly noticeable because his normal (right) iris colour was dark brown. Thus the contrast between his healthy eye and his injured eye was very high.

By Jennifer Long
Occupational optometry is a diverse and interesting field. It includes providing services to individual patients (e.g., certifying that a patient has adequate vision to drive or to perform a job) and providing services to companies and other organisations (e.g., vision screening programs, eye protection advice, and products). If you are fortunate, you might even have the opportunity to visit a workplace and observe how workers interact with the task and their environment.

By Prof Paul Ramkissoon
A corneal laceration is a cut on the cornea. Typically, it is caused by something sharp flying into the eye. It is also caused by something striking the eye with significant force, like a fingernail or metallic fragment or tool. A corneal laceration is deeper than a corneal abrasion, cutting partially or entirely through the cornea. A partial-thickness (lamellar) injury does not violate the globe of the eye. However, a full-thickness wound penetrates altogether through the cornea…