Today several eye hospitals have their own training programmes for the AOP cadre. Often institutions face challenges such as:
- balancing time for patient care and training activities
- ensuring high quality outcomes while providing training opportunity
- ensuring skill transfer
- lack of training material for the AOP cadre
In order to address the quality of training of allied ophthalmic personnel (AOP), this conference brings together institutions to share best practices and resources for eye care training. We encourage you to share your work through these competitions:
Who can attend this conference?
This conference is for ophthalmologists, allied ophthalmic personnel, optometrists, technicians, ophthalmic nursing trainers, hospital managers and other cadres of eye care institutions who are involved in the training AOP staff.
The WHO Global Action Plan 2014-19 notes that “Allied Ophthalmic Personnel (AOP) comprise opticians, ophthalmic nurses, orthoptists, ophthalmic and optometric assistants, ophthalmic and optometric technicians, vision therapists, ocularists, ophthalmic photographers/ imagers, and ophthalmic administrators”
The Cambridge Declaration, in 2015, acknowledges the critical role of AOP in the delivery of high quality comprehensive eye services – and their role in achieving Universal Eye Health. But despite this, their development has often been neglected, with gaps in their skills and capacities, especially when compared with other cadres of eye health personnel.
Source: www.iapb.org/news/developing-competent-allied-ophthalmic-personnel/
PAPER PRESENTATION COMPETITION:
Tell us how you ensure training effectiveness. Submit an abstract under one of the five themes
Themes:
- Teaching clinical topics to AOP trainees
What unique teaching methods do you use inside or outside your classroom to teach clinical theory/topics to your AOP* learners?
- Skill practice and assessment for AOP trainees
How do you ensure that your AOP learners become competent to perform the skills? How do you plan the practicals, clinical practice and skill assessment?
- Imparting soft skills to AOP trainees
How do you teach the necessary soft skills to allied ophthalmic personnel?
- Creating effective AOP trainers
How do you ensure that your trainers are effective in teaching your AOP learners? (Trainers may be doctors, senior AOP staff, external faculty etc.)
- Keeping your AOP staff updated
How do you ensure that your AOP staff are always kept relevant to perform their role effectively? How do you do provide refresher training, upskilling, and keep your AOP staff updated and current?
Rules:
- Abstract submission by 15 Nov 2021
- Selected abstracts will be invited to present at the online conference
- More than one submission from an institution is allowed
- Submissions must be in English
- “Best paper” prize will be given under each theme.
VIDEO COMPETITION:
Videos have been found to be a very effective teaching tool. Do you create videos for your learners?
Submit a video under one of the following categories
Categories:
- Skill-based topics
You can share any video that explains about how to perform a skill related to allied ophthalmic personnel
Examples: Objective refraction using streak retinoscopy, How to measure visual acuity, How to counsel patients for cataract surgery
- Knowledge-based topics
You can share any video that explains clinical or non-clinical theory for allied ophthalmic personnel
Examples: Anatomy of the eye, Refractive errors, Corneal diseases and disorders, Types of IOLs
Rules:
- Original videos for AOP trainees can be submitted.
- The video must be completely original – do not use any copyright video clips from the internet
- Videos with original animations are also accepted
- Video format should be MP4
- The submission must be a complete video about a topic. It cannot be just a video clip
- Video submission: 15 Nov 2021
- Selected videos (or excerpts) will be screened during the online conference
- More than one submission from an institution is allowed
- Submissions only in English
- All submitted videos will be made available online for all conference participants
- “Best video” prize will be given under each category
SIMULATION MODEL COMPETITION:
It is important for AOP learners to have the opportunity to practice their clinical skills before they are placed in the clinic.
We are looking for innovative ways to give a chance for our AOP learners to practice their skills before they perform the skill on real patients (similar to using goat eye in the wet lab for cataract surgery practice)
Submit a video of how you create opportunity for simulation practice for your AOP learners.
Rules:
- Original videos of your simulation model for AOP trainees can be submitted.
- Video length should be within 7 minutes.
- Video format should be MP4
- The video must include:
- Name of the skill
- Show the model
- Things used / things needed
- Demonstration of a person using the model for skill practice
- Cost incurred
- Video submission: 15 Nov 2021
- Selected videos will be presented at the online conference
- More than one submission from an institution is allowed
- Submissions only in English
- All submitted videos will be made available online for all conference participants
- “Best simulation model” prize will be announced at the conference
