The use of trained non-physician health personnel in national programs for the prevention of blindness and in the delivery of eye care is a long established tradition and practice in many parts of the world. It is a well-known fact that an opthalmologist often spends time on doing work that other people could do, instead of concentrating upon doing work, which requires their unique skills and competence.

To meet the global challenge of escalating avoidable blindness, the delivery of eye care services therefore requires a wide range of suitably trained personnel, besides ophthalmologists. The rational use of ophthalmologists dictates that many of the simpler tasks pertaining to delivery of eye care can be carried out, at acceptable levels of competency, by suitably trained ophthalmic medical personnel.

Ophthalmic medical personnel are often referred to, in developing countries, by the generic term mid-level health personnel trained in eye care delivery. Mid-level gernerally refers to the level between the community and the specialized care services. Depending upon their training, they can be part of any eye care team at tertiary, secondary or primary levels.

Experience has shown that recourse to the use of appropriately and adequaltely trained and supervised mid-level eye care personnel both by developing as well as developed countries has led not only to cost-contrainment but also to higher volumes of patients seen in eye care services as well as it has also led to greater patient satisfaction.

WHO often in collaboration with a number of NGOs, has actively promoted and supported the development of such training in various regions. Lions Sight First Programmed has been successfully supporting such projects in Africa (IOTA, Mali) and Asia (LAICO, India).

Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospitals Rawalpindi was officially commissioned on 28th April 1991. Pakistan Insititute of Ophthalmology the Academic wing of Al-Shifa Trust started running postgraduate courses for ophthalmologists and Ophthalmic Midlevel personeel right from its beginning.

Optometry and Orthoptic courses are part of that training program at PIO. The paucity of trained manpower and lack of specially trained and qualified personnel is a major initiative for establishing this elaborate and well structured specialized training program in Optometry and Orthoptics. Keeping in mind the Al-Shifa's experiences in training Optometrist and Orthoptitst a four years degree program has been started that will cater for the future needs of the country. University of Health Sciences has approved this curriculum for B.Sc in Optometry and Orthoptics vide its letter no. UHS/ARA-06/147 dated 10 April, 2006.

Courses-Brief

Note:Rs. 1000/- as security deposit in advance.

Selection Criteria
Selection Criteria for above mentioned courses is

• Open merit
• Entrance exam/Interview
• Medically fit