The Professor Ian Flitcroft episode

Professor Flitcroft is a paediatric ophthalmologist who has been involved with myopia research for over two decades. Having published over 30 scientific peer-reviewed papers, Professor Flitcroft’s work focuses on clinical research as well as computational and mathematical approaches to eye growth.

Here are five things we learned about Professor Flitcroft and his research when recording The OT Podcast.

1 Becoming an astrophysicist verses an ophthalmologist

As a teenager exploring his career options and applying to university, Professor Flitcroft wanted to be an astrophysicist. “My school teacher told me not to be so stupid. He said, ‘There’s not money in that. You are good at science, you should do something useful’,” Professor Flitcroft told OT. Identifying that the then schoolboy liked biology, the teacher suggested he become a doctor instead. Consequently, Professor Flitcroft became a medical student at the Oxford University.

On studying at Oxford, Professor Flitcroft reflected: “I loved the science side of it. At that stage, the first three years were very much anatomy, dead bodies, physiology, and all the rest of it.”

Professor Flitcroft recalled that during his time at Oxford, the heads of five separate departments, including psychology and engineering, were all focused on vision research. He subsequently went on to complete his PhD in accommodation control at the university.

“I’ve been involved in understanding that sort of fun from the very early days of myopia research,” Professor Flitcroft said.

Describing this research as initially a niggling hobby, “now my hobby has become my full-time job as that whole area has evolved from an intriguing scientific puzzle into a therapeutic area,” he added.

2 The myopia epidemic and a fondness of analogies

In Professor Flitcroft’s view, the realisation of the UK’s myopia epidemic happened “so slowly that we have completely adapted and got used to the fact that a third of kids are leaving school short sighted with a potentially preventable condition,” he told OT.

He highlighted that while there was a rapid rise of myopia that was hard to miss in Asia, if you look at the rate of myopia in 50-year-old Chinese people now, it’s less than it is in Europeans.

Declaring himself fond of analogies, Professor Flitcroft highlighted: “If every pair of glasses on a kid were replaced by a walking stick or Zimmer frame, and you stood outside a senior school and watched those kids stagger out with their walking frames, there would be a national outcry.”

He calls myopia the “invisible epidemic,” because “we’re so good at correcting with glasses... we’ve been doing it for so many hundreds of years, and the level has been so high for so long now that we’ve become sort of immune to it. So, I never brought into there having been such a sudden or high rise in Europe; we have accepted the fact it’s there and we are doing nothing about it.”

3 Traffic lights and treatment

Continuing with analogies, when asked if he is satisfied with the treatment available for myopia management, Professor Flitcroft said: “I have the same approach to traffic lights as I do to myopia control – I’m deeply impatient and deeply frustrated by people who, after sitting at a red traffic light, when it goes green, don’t move.”

This is how Professor Flitcroft sees the movement of myopia management into practice. “By 2050 we will have five billion myopes, we now have five major optical companies in the world all with products with proven efficacy, and yet in five different continents most eye care professionals aren’t using it,” he said.

“So yes, treatments are out there, but that change in practice is frustratingly red light/green light slow to me,” he added.

The ophthalmologist highlighted that from innovation to adoption, the standard figure is 17 years, “but the famous 1977 paper by Wiesel, that showed a myopic eye could be manipulated, was 37 years ago.”

He emphasised: “Yes it’s slow, but the wall we are hitting right now is not evidential, nor through a lack of treatment – it’s practice awareness, it’s confidence, and it’s simple things like business models and how to fit it into practice.”

4 Optometry at the forefront

When considering the size of the population and the number of those impacted by myopia, the treatment available and who should treat them, Professor Flitcroft is certain that optometry should lead the way. “There are not enough ophthalmologists on the planet to see them,” he said.

“Being optics only or optics first is the right way,” he added.

“Optics delivered by optometry is the only way to get past this – to get the people stuck on the green light moving forward. We have enough tools in the tool kit to do it properly right now, and the barriers are not IP, they are confidence, business models, and prioritisation.”

5 He is a published fiction writer

Professor Flitcroft’s debut fiction novel was The reluctant cannibals, a tale of a group of food-obsessed academics at Oxford University who form a secret dining society and go about investigating forgotten culinary treasures. He has since published Journey by starlight, which follows Albert Einstein 2.0 and his traveling companion through space and time, explaining the science behind everything from the origins of the universe to the meaning of life. He is also author of the first Jane Austen thesaurus and a Jane Austin spell checker.

The OT Podcast

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