Dr Louis Catania

Historical Significance: Momentum to expand the scope of optometric practice to include treatment of eye disease using therapeutic drugs was gathering in the 1980s with strong leadership from Dr David Cockburn and other members of the College who were teaching advanced diagnostic techniques. It had not gone unnoticed that, from 1976, optometrists in an increasing number of States of the USA had gained legislative rights to use therapeutics drugs. 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 charismatically 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 began the movement that culminated in Victorian optometrists gaining the right to use a S4 drugs for the treatment of anterior eye disease and glaucoma. The first optometrists exercised this new right in 2000. Catania graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry in 1969, and completed a 2-year residency in primary eye care and anterior segment disease with the University of Rochester, School of Medicine Hospital where he also taught primary care to optometric and medical interns for 8 years. He became a major continuing education speaker in the USA and wrote several books on primary treatment of eye diseases.