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The University of Western Australia has partnered with The Lions Eye Institute and optometry industry leaders to launch Western Australia’s first Doctor of Optometry degree. The new degree will help address a chronic shortage of eyecare professionals in Australia.

Eye disease is projected to increase significantly over the next three decades, primarily due to our ageing population, and this is expected to increase demand for quality eye health care in Australia. Western Australia’s first and only optometry school will help to increase quality eye health outcomes by training world-class optometry graduates in primary and secondary eye health care.

Eye disease is the most common chronic condition in Australia, with more than 12 million Australians reported to have long-term eye conditions, although more than 90 per cent of all vision impairment is preventable or treatable.

Professor Rhonda Clifford, Head of UWA’s School of Allied Health, said there was increasing demand for eye-care services and an undersupply of eye-care professionals. Australia’s ageing population and complications from other chronic health conditions had also added to demand.

“Our new degree will help address the undersupply of eye care professionals in WA, while helping with the distribution of practitioners in regional and remote parts of the State,” Professor Clifford said.

“Professor Garry Fitzpatrick will lead the new Doctor of Optometry course, contributing decades of industry and clinical experience to ensure its success.”

Professor Fitzpatrick said the importance of culturally aware eye-care professionals continued to grow, with the rate of blindness among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders three times higher than non-indigenous Australians.

“UWA, through this partnership with Lions Eye Institute and key industry partners, is taking the lead in tackling a growing problem by delivering an optometry course with a focus beyond best practice eye-care to develop socially and culturally aware optometry leaders.”

Professor Garry Fitzpatrick

The course will produce optometrists with a focus on early detection, diagnosis, treatment and management of eye diseases, and rehabilitation of conditions concerning the visual system.

As part of their study, students will gain hands-on direct patient experience through extended clinical placements with industry partners including Lions Eye Institute and its Lions Outback Vision division, Specsavers, and Luxottica across metropolitan, regional and remote areas of Western Australia.

Lions Eye Institute Managing Director Professor Bill Morgan said graduates of the new degree would become the next generation of highly innovative optometric practitioners, and would be highly sought after by employers.

“The Doctor of Optometry postgraduate three-year degree combines collaborative academic teaching with research,” he said. “Students will have exposure to researchers and clinicians at the Lions Eye Institute, and to assessment of patients by working directly with optometrists and ophthalmologists in Western Australia’s biggest hospitals.”

“We are very pleased to be partnering with UWA to bring the ophthalmology and optometry disciplines closer together in a way that will greatly benefit patients all over the State.”

The three-year postgraduate Doctor of Optometry is available for entry, and is administered by the School of Allied Health within UWA’s Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.

Students who have successfully completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Science or equivalent degree and meet any additional admission requirements, can apply for entry into the Doctor of Optometry.

Entry is competitive, with up to 55 domestic and five international places offered per year.

Applications for 2022 entry open 22 November 2021 and close 6 December 2021.

For further information on UWA’s new Doctor of Optometry course visit the .

The University of Western Australia has applied to the Optometry Council of Australia and New Zealand for the Doctor of Optometry to be recognised as a qualification leading to registration as an optometrist in Australia or New Zealand. The course is currently not accredited.