The students in the class of 2017 celebrated their transition into fourth year with the second annual Injections and Lasers for Optometry weekend that was held April 1st and 2nd at the University of Waterloo, School of Optometry & Vision Science. All 95 students participating in a series of workshops aimed at familiarizing the student interns with various injections techniques. The event was held in conjunction with TLC Waterloo who conducted practical workshops highlighting novel therapies in refractive surgery and collagen cross-linking.
We were fortunate to have the Injections for Optometry portion led by two energetic optometric educators who now live and teach in St. Louis, Missouri: Jennifer Sanderson OD, FAAO, a Canadian originally from London, ON and Andrew Rixon OD, FAAO from Philadelphia, PA. Both instructors have also been involved with teaching the annual Injections workshops at the American Academy of Optometry meetings. This engaging duo were able to relay their real life professional experiences working with an expanded scope of practice that includes intravenous, intramuscular, and subconjunctival injections, as well as lid lesion removal.
Lor Sildiryan practising intravenous injections with Andrew Rixon, OD. In Lor's words: "This was a great workshop! I learned so much and got a ton of hands-on experience. I feel better prepared to take on the American Board exam now!"
The weekend started off with Rixon’s engaging 2-hour lecture on the Friday afternoon prior to the workshop. The lecture covered indications and contraindications for the various procedures, as well as procedural and safety protocols.
The Saturday workshops were split to allow for the students to have a half-day with the injections for optometry and a half-day with TLC. Our well-equipped lab and volunteer clinical instructors, including our new Clinic Director, Andre Stanberry, facilitated intravenous and intramuscular injections by each student on a life-like model arm. Protocols for National Board of Examiners in Optometry (NBEO) were reviewed in detail to prepare students for success on the injections station of the U.S. Boards. The students also witnessed live subconjunctival and lid injections in small groups.
The TLC laser and refractive workshop involved four exciting stations, two that used porcine eyes to both practice excimer laser for flap creation and debridement for PRK, a corneal crosslinking station that reviewed patient selection and protocols as well as a demonstration, and an engaging practice pearls lecture hosted by Dr. Chris Surdykowski. TLC put in a tremendous amount of work and offered a great deal of resources to bring our students these timely and relevant workshops. Sincere thanks go to TLC for their support and enthusiasm in making this a very successful learning weekend for our students!
The feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive and many commented on the benefit of being exposed to procedures included in some North American optometry scopes of practice. This was our second time hosting the event and we look forward to developing similar workshops for next year, including welcoming Sanderson and Rixon back for the Injections workshop for the class of 2018!
