Optometric management of anterior eye disease

Historical Significance: Optometrists in the USA had gained rights to prescribe therapeutic drugs and Australian optometrists felt that they were constrained by their inability to do the same. They were frustrated by being able to diagnose common eye diseases but having to refer their patients to a GP or an ophthalmologist for simple primary eye care. However, in the middle of 20thC optometrists were still timid about their aurhority in making diagnoses and did not even manage those eye conditions that were self-resolving or amenable to non-S4 drug treatment. David Cockburn and Barry Cole attended the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Optometry in 1981 and heard a lecture given by Dr Louis Catania on treatment of anterior eye disease. Catania chairismatically encouraged optometrists to embrace this widened scope of practice. He was a great teacher, an entertainer. The College invited him to give a course on diagnosis and treatment of anterior eye disease in Melbourne, which he did in 1983. This manual was prepared as part of a strategy to encourage clinical teachers and optometrr students to be more assertive in diagnosing and treating eye conditions. It was part of a plan to change the culture of the profession to embrace a wider therapeutic primary care role. This culminated in Victorian optometrists gaining the legislative right to use a S4 drugs for the treatment of anterior eye disease and glaucoma in 1999. The first optometrists exercised this new right in 2000.