Myopia Profile in focus

An international resource on myopia management has humble origins – as a double-sided A4 sheet of paper.

“I developed it to communicate myopia management in my practice over 10 years ago. I started talking about it at conferences and had more and more colleagues asking for a copy of this piece of paper,” Melbourne-based optometrist, Dr Kate Gifford told OT.

Her husband and fellow optometrist, Dr Paul Gifford, had the idea of putting the notes on a website so that it was easier to access.

Over the following decade, the Myopia Profile website has expanded to include online courses, downloadable practitioner resources and public awareness tools.

“With wider availability of products and wider percolation of this knowledge, more people from across the world are now coming to Myopia Profile to get started and develop their journey in myopia management,” Dr Kate Gifford shared.

Three resources were launched through Myopia Action month in September – an online seminar series, and two online courses – Myopia Management Made Simple and Myopia Management for the Practice Team.

Myopia Management Made Simple is a one-hour course that takes more than 100 scientific references and condenses this information into what practitioners need to know for clinical practice. The free course continues to be available online.

There were more than two million engagements across different platforms during the course of Myopia Action month in September.

“We have learned so much about what our colleagues are interested in and how we can best put this information forward. We have definitely got a lot of information to work with to plan for 2024,” Dr Kate Gifford said.