Dr Peter Caradus Wellings, ophthalmologist: b November 8, 1939, d July 28, 2022

Obituary: Dr Peter Wellings was a much-respected ophthalmologist, an inspiring and demanding teacher, a talented artist and a much-loved family man. He died at the age of 82.

He attended Wellington College as a boarder from 1953 to 1957, where he graduated Proxime Accessit. He was also school pianist and an accomplished rugby player. He studied medicine at Otago University and then worked at Wellington Hospital as a house officer, then as a neurosurgery registrar, and subsequently as an ophthalmology registrar.

In 1968 he travelled to London to Moorfields Eye Hospital, where he completed his ophthalmological training.

Back in New Zealand in 1973, Peter returned to Wellington Hospital where he became its first full-time consultant ophthalmologist. He joined a medical specialists’ practice on The Terrace a year later, dropping to a part-time appointment at the hospital. He rapidly developed a reputation as a methodical clinician and teacher, and as a talented surgeon.

He was one of the first eye specialists in the country to be trained in the surgical treatment of retinal detachments using the head-mounted binocular ophthalmoscope; and was at the forefront of the introduction of new techniques of cataract surgery using operating microscopes and intra-ocular lenses.

He respected expertise in others and demanded high standards of those who worked with him. His high expectations certainly led to better clinical practice in those around him.

He had particular expertise in neuro-ophthalmology, dealing with neurological conditions with effects on vision and also was one of the few surgeons in the country with expertise in the treatment of diseases of the eye socket.

A former colleague in Palmerston North consulted Peter in the 1970s about a patient with a dangerous orbital tumour and instead of having the patient sent to him for surgery in Wellington, Peter travelled to Palmerston North to perform the surgery as a joint procedure with the referring colleague – for the benefit of both the patient and the colleague.

During his career, Peter was the secretary and then the president of the Ophthalmological Society of New Zealand. He was generous with his knowledge and very methodical. He was an ideal person in the early 1980s to be one of the designers of the ophthalmology training programme of the new Australia-based college that was to become the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists. That training programme is now one of the most respected in the world, and he regarded it as one of his proudest achievements.

In 2015, he was awarded The Meritorious Service Award by The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists “for his outstanding contribution to clinical and academic Ophthalmology in New Zealand and Australia for many years”.

Even in his work, Peter displayed his incisive sense of humour, shown by a witty and often cutting remark delivered while looking over half-glasses, fixing his subject with a steady gaze and an ever-so-subtle grin.

A colleague once wore a garishly colourful tie in Peter’s hospital clinic, explaining that he liked to wear it on the day following patients’ cataract operations so they could appreciate their improved colour vision.

Dr Wellings replied, “Ah – and do they ask to have their cataracts put back in again?”

Outside medicine, Peter was widely read as well as being a talented artist, exhibiting at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts on more than one occasion. He always maintained a eager interest in music, being a strong supporter of the New Zealand arts scene, in particular the NZSO and NZ Opera.

One of Peter’s eager interests was the perception of colour. He gave a number of lectures on this course to various audiences. In these lectures, he discussed the science behind how and why we see colour the way we do, based on having personally carried out historical experiments with reference to colours.

Shortly before his death, he published his book – What is Colour – based on these talks.

Peter was a devoted husband and father, and was married to Jillian for nearly 55 years. They had four children and he keenly followed their academic and personal interest pursuits, including being a regular supporter on the side of Wellington sports fields.

He was proud of his family’s long history in New Zealand – his forebears having arrived in Aotearoa in 1842 – and passed this interest on to his children, along with his love of music.

By Dr Keith Small and the Wellings family

This article was originally featured on Undark.

This past November, a patient asked optometrist Kaitlin Soracco to remove a bulge of skin on her eyelid. Such skin tags can be excised right there in the office using procedures Soracco studied and observed in optometry school almost a decade ago. Yet in California, where Soracco works, as well as in 32 other states, non-physician optometrists are not legally permitted to perform these treatments. So when Soracco saw this patient at Peach Tree Live Oak, a federally qualified health center north of Sacramento, she had to refer her to an ophthalmologist, a type of physician who specializes in treating the eyes. 

But such referrals can be difficult. Some ophthalmologists have stopped accepting Medicaid, the low-income health insurance program that supports 30 percent of all Californians, said Peach Tree CEO Greg Stone. In California, Medicaid payments for some laser procedures run 16 to 55 percent lower than Medicare reimbursements, which are, in turn, well below commercial insurance fees. For ophthalmology practices already filled with commercially insured patients, Stone said, accepting someone new on Medicaid doesn’t make sense financially. Consequently, for Medicaid patients, it can often take six months to be seen by a specialist, Soracco said.

A bill introduced in California last February sought to allow trained optometrists to remove small non-cancerous skin tags and perform several other procedures, including certain laser treatments, that are traditionally restricted to ophthalmologists. Supporters of the bill say that expanding optometrists’ scope of practice could help address longstanding challenges with health care access. “There’s a runaway demand for health care, and a declining population of providers,” Stone said.

Yet in September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, citing insufficient optometry education and training for the surgical procedures. After undergraduate studies, ophthalmologists must complete eight or more years of medical school and specialized clinical training, compared with four years of specialized education and training for optometrists.

The California Academy of Eye Physicians and Surgeons hailed the governor’s decision as a “major victory for patient safety” — as did the American Medical Association, which called the bill “a radical measure.” The American Academy of Ophthalmology had also opposed the legislation.

While the veto closed the book on this particular California bill, a similar bill is now under consideration in South Dakota and debate continues nationwide over whether optometrists should be allowed to perform procedures and make diagnoses that traditionally fall under the purview of ophthalmologists. At stake are questions of patient access and safety, and of financial competition between two overlapping professions.

Already, scientific progress and patient need have propelled the profession of optometry such that its practitioners now provide most primary eye care in the United States, routinely diagnosing and treating conditions that were outside of their scope of practice half a century ago. With continuing advances in a technology-driven field, turf wars in eye care will invariably continue, experts say, with lobbying money playing a key role in determining who is qualified to diagnose and treat a range of common eye conditions.

State legislatures have come to play a key role in this debate because any changes to optometrists’ scope of practice must be explicitly spelled out in law. Physicians, on the other hand, possess a medical license, which grants broad leeway to diagnose patients, prescribe medications, and — in the case of ophthalmologists and other surgeons — remove or repair tissues and organs.

Optometry’s pioneers initially embraced the idea that their work meaningfully differed from that of their medical colleagues. Some noted that a key job of optometrists — dispensing spectacles — benefitted from specialized training in engineering, mathematics, and optical physics, which many physicians lack. Until the 1970s, “we were a drugless profession, and many people were proud of that,” said John Amos, a retired optometrist and former dean of the School of Optometry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

In practice, however, the profession had begun dipping into medicine decades earlier. During World War I, the United States Army swelled its ranks to include, for the first time, nearsighted men. The dramatic rise in eye care demand spurred a transformation: Optometry evolved in the 1920s from apprenticeships with variable quality and format to a profession shaped by a standardized curriculum offered at schools across the country. That decade, all states passed laws acknowledging optometry as a licensed profession.

World War II and the Vietnam War pushed the field further, enlisting optometrists to serve in the Army and work at Veterans Administration hospitals — examining patients and, in some cases, performing duties virtually indistinguishable from physicians. During a yearlong stint as an optometry officer in Vietnam, Amos saw patients with pink eye and a wide range of other inflammatory conditions and eye injuries. “I treated everything,” he said.

Yet in civilian settings, diagnosing those conditions, let alone treating them, was off limits. When optometrists examined a patient and found signs of disease, they had to refer the patient to an ophthalmologist for the actual diagnosis.

In the 1970s, several noteworthy advances in eye care served as the impetus for scope expansion. Soft contact lenses were first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1971. Compared to hard lenses, which optometrists were already prescribing, soft contacts more often caused complications such as ulcers and eye infections. The conditions were generally treatable — using antibiotic drops and anti-inflammatories that had just hit the scene — but optometrists were not allowed to prescribe medication. This restriction meant that optometrists were similarly unable to offer their patients recently approved eye drops to prevent vision loss associated with glaucoma, a group of conditions — often caused by increased pressure in the eye — that is more common in older adults and can lead to loss of vision by damaging the optic nerve.

To stay competitive, optometrists decided to mobilize. Broadening their scope of practice would require optometrists to “go through the legislative process and change the law,” said Richard Castillo, who trained in optometry and ophthalmology decades ago and now teaches at Oklahoma College of Optometry at Northeastern State University.

Scope expansion required multiple waves of state legislation spanning several decades. During this time, optometrists were given some leeway to use diagnostic drugs, to make diagnoses, and to prescribe treatments. Often the initial laws were limited, and many states saw further rounds of legislation to expand them. In California, for example, optometrists gained some therapeutic privileges in 1996 but could not fully treat glaucoma until 2008. Glaucoma has no cure, but if caught early, medication can help reduce eye pressure and prevent vision loss.

Over time, with advances in medical equipment, ophthalmologists started seeing similar benefits treating some glaucoma patients with laser light, which lowers eye pressure promoting drainage of excess fluids. One such procedure, selective laser trabeculoplasty, has been studied for about three decades. When compared head-to-head with eye drops in a trial in the U.K. of patients with the most common type of glaucoma, laser treatment relieved eye pressure as safely and effectively as drops — and at lower cost to patients and providers.

This outpatient laser procedure is now considered a first-line therapy not only in ophthalmology but also, increasingly over time, in optometry. Before the exact California veto, similar bills extended laser authority to optometrists in 10 states, four since 2021. In total, some 225 state laws have been enacted since the 1970s to broaden the scope of optometric practice.

These legislative changes have come at significant financial cost. To secure therapeutic prescribing privileges in Alabama, for example, the state’s optometric association paid a top lobbying firm $100,000 per year and asked each member to donate, on top of their usual association dues, around $5,000 toward legislative efforts over a four-year period in the 1990s. Those contributions, totaling nearly $1 million, went to political candidates who the polls projected would win or had a reasonable shot, according to an article Amos wrote for Hindsight: Journal of Optometry History. Other states have applied similar strategies.

Though it’s hard to determine how much directly goes toward scope expansion efforts, total lobbying expenditures of California’s optometry and ophthalmology associations last year exceeded $1 million. During that period, the California Optometric Association spent more than $777,000 while the California Academy of Eye Physicians & Surgeons paid just under $300,000.

Experts disagree on what the new scope expansion laws mean for patients. To some, the statutes are troubling because they appear to undercut the science-backed foundation of mainstream medicine. “It’s not necessarily a training or an educational system that ends up defining what is safe and not safe,” said Stephen McLeod, CEO of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and former chair of ophthalmology at the University of California at San Francisco. “It really is legislative — a stroke of the pen.”

Others see the situation differently. “The law has to catch up with the training,” said Kristine Shultz, executive director of the California Optometric Association. Optometrists are no longer trained in loosely regulated apprenticeships. Instead, their four years of post-undergraduate training increasingly incorporate diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions.

Just as optometrists’ scope of practice has expanded over the past 50 years, so has the nature of their curriculum. By the time Soracco completed her four-year doctor of optometry degree in 2016, she and her classmates had learned to recognize and manage a range of eye conditions, including infections, inflammation, and diseases such as glaucoma. They learned which medications to prescribe. They learned how to determine if a skin tag might be cancerous. And by shadowing ophthalmologists in clinical rotations, they have observed firsthand how to use lasers and remove skin tags. “Every optometry school in America right now teaches these office procedures,” said Castillo.

What Soracco’s training did not offer was a chance to perform these methods on live human patients — a key point of contention from opponents of the scope expansion bill. “Treating a plastic eye is not the same thing as treating a real eye,” said Craig Kliger, executive vice president of the California Academy of Eye Physicians and Surgeons. “The tissue reacts totally differently.”

Furthermore, offering laser eye treatments requires much more than mastering the instrument. “The bigger issue is not the mechanics of the procedure itself in a particularly well-chosen patient,” said McLeod, “but choosing the right procedure for the right patient and managing any complications that happen afterward.” With such delicate tissue layers packed into a tiny organ, stakes are high. Often “you get one chance,” he said. “To try and reverse something you’ve done is incredibly difficult to do without some compromise to eye health.”

The National Institutes of Health considers laser surgeries a safe and effective first-line glaucoma treatment, yet case reports document examples of retinal damage resulting from accidental misuse. Researchers have tried to determine, on a broader level, whether optometrists have worse outcomes than ophthalmologists when performing the same laser procedures.

One analysis, published in 2016 in JAMA Ophthalmology, looked specifically at laser trabeculoplasty — one of the procedures on California’s exact scope expansion bill. The researchers analyzed Medicare claims data on 891 patients with glaucoma who received laser trabeculoplasty between 2008 and 2013 in Oklahoma, where optometrists have been offering this treatment for more than two decades. The study found that patients who saw an optometrist for the laser treatment were about twice as likely to undergo additional laser procedures in the same eye, compared with patients who had the initial procedure done by an ophthalmologist.

And in a 2021 analysis, optometrists had worse scores than ophthalmologists in Medicare’s payment incentive program, which rewards physicians based on quality metrics — reduction of eye pressure, for example.

On the surface, both studies would seem to urge caution about extending laser privileges to optometrists. Yet the data can be challenging to interpret. The laser trabeculoplasty study used Medicare billing data, which reports procedure rates but not patient outcomes. Lacking information about eye pressure changes or complications after treatment, some experts suggest it is hard to conclude that a higher volume of care translates to lower-quality procedures.

The payment incentive study is also hard to parse, in part because it is a generalized comparison — data on specific procedures are not available. Plus, performance metrics could be skewed by low-income patients, who are more likely to see an optometrist than an ophthalmologist, said study co-author Dustin French, a health economist in the ophthalmology department at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Aggregate data on health outcomes are notoriously difficult to track in the United States’ fragmented health care system. “There’s almost never a central repository,” said McLeod.

“We have incomplete data now,” he added, “and I don’t see the data getting any better anytime soon.” 

This makes it challenging to produce solid data to support scope expansion, or to refute it. It’s “all speculation and a matter of opinion and position,” French said.

It’s also tricky to compare professional training. Although ophthalmologists spend more total years in post-undergraduate training, the first segment covers medicine more broadly; whereas, the optometry curriculum focuses entirely on eye care — a point that optometrists highlight when advocating for scope expansion. Furthermore, for those wanting laser privilege, the vetoed California bill called for additional training that included 43 procedures on live humans. That would have gone “above and beyond” other states where optometrists got laser authority with very little live patient experience or even none at all, Shultz said.

On the whole, however, optometrists have much less experience treating disease. They mainly see healthy patients for routine eye exams, said Kliger. Ophthalmologists “see more pathology,” which gives them a broader, more nuanced understanding of eye diseases and how to treat them.

At first blush, each side of the scope debate puts the focus on patients. Optometry highlights the need to expand health care access while medicine stresses safety and quality of care.

Both sides also acknowledge that conversations on the ground center around different agendas. “I’ve been to enough department of ophthalmology meetings at enough hospitals where I can tell you the discussion is rarely about patient care when it comes to these scope battles,” said Castillo, a practicing ophthalmologist who teaches optometry students. More often, he added, those conversations revolved around market share, competition, reimbursements — the business of eye care.

Amos, the retired optometrist, agreed. “It is, at some level, always financial,” he said.

Up until the early 1990s, Castillo said, ophthalmologists who performed cataract surgeries earned more than $2,000 per eye. Nowadays, he continued, each procedure reimburses about $600. What happened? Over the years, the surgery became safer, faster, and more effective, which drove up demand in the aging U.S. population, and, in turn, prompted a steep drop in reimbursement rates. “If Medicare was still paying $2,000 per cataract surgery, Medicare would be broke — more broke than it is,” Castillo said. Ophthalmology, he added, “was a victim of their own success.”

Compensation is also a key concern for optometry. When Medicare was enacted in 1965, optometrists were not eligible for payment because the federal health insurance program only reimbursed physicians. It took two decades for optometry to gain inclusion — a historic legislative feat, in the view of leading professional bodies.

Given the steady march of scientific advancements in a technology-heavy specialty, friction over scope of practice in eye care is unlikely to subside. “It may not go on with the same rapidity,” said Amos, “but I suspect it will continue in one form or the other.”

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

Mineral Medical Center to House New Arapahoe County Hub for Outpatient Care

DENVER, Feb. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Mineral Medical Center, the multi-tenant medical building located at 1501 W. Mineral Avenue in Littleton, is proud to announce the addition of Mineral Surgery Center, LLC. The new ambulatory surgery center will become the region's existing state-licensed, AAAHC accredited, Medicare-approved ambulatory surgical center.

"By combining state-of-the-art building enhancements with our surgical center's industry-leading technology, this facility will transform outpatient medical care for Arapahoe County," said Karen Repine, M.D., Mineral Surgery Center partner. "The demand for outpatient medical services is at an all-time high and this new center brings the region easy access to highly specialized medical treatment."

The surgery center will consist of fully equipped operating rooms and can handle a wide range of surgical cases with local, monitored, and general anesthesia. A full range of ophthalmic outpatient surgical procedures, including cataract surgery with intraocular lens implants, glaucoma surgery, various laser eye surgeries, cornea transplant surgery, and other cornea and ophthalmic procedures.

The Center will also offer a wide range of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery procedures for both medical and cosmetic purposes. Specific procedures will include blepharoplasty, ptosis repair, brow lifts, face and neck lifts, rhinoplasty, septoplasty, otoplasty, and a variety of other procedures of the face, head, and neck.

Acquired in 2019, Mineral Medical Center is Broe Real Estate Group's latest MOB repositioning project, totaling nearly $300MM of successful medical conversions. Construction of the new surgical center is scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2023 and conclude by fourth quarter 2023.

About Broe Real Estate Group

Broe Real Estate Group, an affiliate of The Broe Group, acquires, develops and manages commercial real estate assets. Affiliated companies own and manage office and industrial properties, medical office buildings and multi-family communities across the country, including premier assets in many of the most desirable markets. The Broe Group has a 50-year history of value-add real estate investing in Colorado and across the United States. We Boost value though the implementation of focused business plans that increase cash flow and create stable income streams. Additional information is available at broerealestate.com

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About The Broe Group

Founded in 1972, The Broe Group is a private, multi-billion-dollar investment group with diversified holdings in real estate, rail, infrastructure, energy, agriculture, water, healthcare and technology throughout 41 North American states and provinces. Its deep operational knowledge derived from owning and operating multi-billion-dollar businesses and the global economic insights gleaned from serving its vast Fortune 500 clientele are strategic differentiators. The Broe Group's entrepreneurial focus enables it to find true value wherever it resides. For more information, visit broe.com.

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SOURCE Broe Real Estate Group

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

Feb 06, 2023 (The Expresswire) -- Ophthalmic Slit Lamp Market Size 2023-2028 | New Report (114 Pages) | In This Reports Ophthalmic Slit Lamp Market and its business scene, significant issues, answers for relieving the upgrading risk, methodologies, future lookout, and possibilities, Other than the standard design reports, Top Ophthalmic Slit Lamp Companies (Haag-Streit, Topcon, Zeiss, NIDEK CO.,LTD., Shin Nippon (Rexxam Co., Ltd.), Keeler (Halma plc), Luneau Technology, Huvitz Co. Ltd., 66 Vision Tech Co., Ltd., Costruzione Strumenti Oftalmici, Kowa, Reichert (AMETEK), ChongQing KangHua S and T Co., Ltd, Shanghai MediWorks Precision Instruments Co., Ltd., Suzhou Kangjie Medical Inc. Co.,Ltd) with the best facts and figures, definitions, SWOT and PESTAL analysis, expert opinions and the latest trends around the world.

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

According to the report, the global ophthalmic devices market garnered $32.53 billion in 2019, and is estimated to reach $44.86 billion by 2027.

• Market Size By 2031 USD 4.86 Billion
• Growth Rate CAGR of 4.0%
• Forecast period 2020 – 2027
• Report Pages 270

What is ophthalmic Devices?

Ophthalmic devices refer to instruments, apparatus, machines, implants, or similar articles intended to be used for human eye examination, diagnosis, treatment, or correction of vision impairments. Examples of ophthalmic devices include eyeglasses, contact lenses, ophthalmoscopes, intraocular lenses, and other eye surgical instruments.

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The use of ophthalmic devices is expected to increase in the near future, owing to alarming rise in the prevalence of eye diseases, such as glaucoma, cataract, and refractive errors. In 2019, North America dominated the ophthalmic devices market, and is expected to maintain its lead throughout the forecast period, owing to high adoption of ophthalmic devices.

COVID-19 Scenario-

• The operational disruption in the surgical instrument and equipment manufacturing, due to COVID-19 outbreak, has impacted the ophthalmic devices market. On the other hand, the supply chain disruptions have resulted in shortages of devices.
• However, the government bodies in several regions have imposed certain relaxations on the restrictions, in order to maintain economic requirement. Owing to this the companies have restarted the manufacturing.

Ophthalmic devices can be classified into several segments based on their use and application, including:

1. Vision correction devices – eyeglasses, contact lenses, and refractive surgery equipment
2. Diagnostic devices – ophthalmoscopes, tonometers, visual field analyzers, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) devices
3. Surgical devices – intraocular lenses, phacoemulsification machines, and other surgical instruments used in cataract and refractive surgeries
4. Low vision aids – magnifying glasses, telescopes, and closed-circuit televisions for individuals with low vision or visual impairments
5. Ocular prosthetics – artificial eyes and other devices used to replace missing or damaged parts of the eye
6. Therapeutic devices – laser devices for the treatment of retinal disorders and other eye conditions.

Each segment has its own set of products designed to address specific eye conditions or vision impairments.

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Regional Analysis: 

The ophthalmic devices market analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA. The North America ophthalmic devices market accounted for the largest share in 2019; however, Asia-Pacific is anticipated to grow at the highest CAGR of 4.6% throughout the forecast period. According to the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention, diabetic retinopathy is expected to account for major cause of blindness in the U.S. From 2010 to 2050, the number of Americans with diabetic retinopathy is expected to nearly double from 7.7 million to 14.6 million. Glaucoma further contributes toward the loss of vision and blindness.

• North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico)
• Europe (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe)
• Asia-Pacific (Japan, China, India, Australia, Rest of Asia-Pacific)
• LAMEA (Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Rest of LAMEA)

Leading market players

• Abbott Laboratories
• Novartis AG
• Carl Zeiss Meditec AG
• Essilor International S.A.
• HAAG-Streit Holding AG
• Johnson & Johnson
• Nidek Co., Ltd.
• Topcon Corporation
• Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.
• Ziemer Ophthalmic Systems AG.

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Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of “Market Research Reports” and “Business Intelligence Solutions.” AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.

Major players in the ophthalmic medical lasers market are Alcon Laboratories Inc, Abbott Medical Optics Inc, Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Bausch & Lomb Incorporated, Topcon Corporation, Ziemer Ophthalmic Systems AG, IRIDEX Corporation, NIDEK Co Ltd, Lumenis Ltd, and Johnson & Johnson.

New York, Feb. 08, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Ophthalmic Medical Lasers Global Market Report 2023" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06280900/?utm_source=GNW

The global ophthalmic medical lasers market is expected to grow from $1.04 billion in 2021 to $1.12 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.6%. The Russia-Ukraine war disrupted the chances of global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, at least in the short term. The war between these two countries has led to economic sanctions on multiple countries, surge in commodity prices, and supply chain disruptions, causing inflation across goods and services effecting many markets across the globe. The ophthalmic medical lasers market is expected to grow to $1.46 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 6.8%.

The ophthalmic medical lasers market consists of sales of instruments such as SLT laser, excimer laser, cyclodiode laser, and femtosecond laser.Values in this market are ‘factory gate’ values, that is the value of goods sold by the manufacturers or creators of the goods, whether to other entities (including downstream manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and retailers) or directly to end customers.

The value of goods in this market includes related services sold by the creators of the goods.

Ophthalmic medical lasers are used in the treatment of diseases related to the eye.

North America was the largest region in the ophthalmic medical lasers market in 2022.Asia Pacific was the second largest region in the ophthalmic medical lasers market.

The regions covered in the ophthalmic medical lasers market report are Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East, and Africa.

The main products of the ophthalmic medical lasers are diode lasers, femtosecond lasers, excimer lasers aromatherapy, ND:YAG lasers, and others.A diode laser is a semiconductor that uses a p-n junction for producing coherent radiation with the same frequency and phase which is either in the visible or infrared spectrum.

The various applications include refractive error correction, cataract removal, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and others. The various end-users are hospitals, specialty clinics, and ambulatory surgery centres.

The rising incidence of ocular disorders is driving the demand for the ophthalmic medical lasers market.Ocular disorders are the ones that affect vision and eye health in patients of all ages and treatment with lasers helps reshape the eye cornea for better focus, which contributes to an improved vision.

According to a study by the lancet, in 2020, 43.3 million people were blind. 295 million people had moderate to severe vision impairment, 258 million had mild vision impairment. The rise in the incidence of ocular disease that requires laser treatment contributes to the growth of the ophthalmic medical lasers market.

The availability of alternative therapies for vision correction is expected to hinder the ophthalmic medical lasers market.The alternatives for lasers in ophthalmology include using a lens for correcting the vision using techniques such as Phakic Intraocular Lens Implants, and Refractive Lens Exchange Surgery.

According to the statistics by the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS), 95% of patients who choose to have a standard IOL procedure, which is considered safe for cataract surgery, experience fully restored vision. Therefore, the availability of alternative therapies to correct vision is expected to hamper the ophthalmic medical lasers market.

Companies are investing in manufacturing devices that incorporate next-generation technology to treat ocular diseases. Following the trend, In Feb 2020, IRIDEX Corporation, an innovative ophthalmic laser-based medical products provider for the treatment of glaucoma and retinal diseases has launched the second generation of the MicroPulse P3® Device that gives greater stability, visualization, coupling, and fit.

In June 2020, Lumibird, a leading France-based laser technologies specialist acquired all of Ellex’s laser and ultrasound activities for $70 million.Through this acquisition, the Lumibird group aimed to strengthen its current product portfolio with complimentary high-quality products, and extend its geographical presence, particularly in the US and Japan, as the acquisition included Ellex’s R&D and production site in Adelaide and the commercial subsidiaries based in Australia, Japan, the US, France, and Germany.

Ellex is a leading Australia-based ophthalmic equipment manufacturer.

The countries covered in the ophthalmic medical lasers market are Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, UK, and USA.

The market value is defined as the revenues that enterprises gain from goods and/or services sold within the specified market and geography through sales, grants, or donations in terms of currency (in USD ($) unless otherwise specified).

The revenues for a specified geography are consumption values – that is, they are revenues generated by organizations in the specified geography within the specified market, irrespective of where they are produced. It does not include revenues from resales either further along the supply chain or as part of other products.

The ophthalmic medical lasers market research report is one of a series of new reports that provides ophthalmic medical lasers market statistics, including ophthalmic medical lasers industry global market size, regional shares, competitors with a ophthalmic medical lasers market share, detailed ophthalmic medical lasers market segments, market trends and opportunities, and any further data you may need to thrive in the ophthalmic medical lasers industry. This ophthalmic medical lasers market research report delivers a complete perspective of everything you need, with an in-depth analysis of the current and future scenario of the industry.
Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06280900/?utm_source=GNW

About Reportlinker
ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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Eight faculty from four University of Pennsylvania schools have been elected 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellows. They are among more than 500 researchers honored for their “scientifically and socially distinguished achievements.”

Since 1874, AAAS, a scientific society aimed at advancing science, engineering, and innovation “throughout the world for the benefit of all,” has annually named a class of fellows. This year, the work spans 24 scientific disciplines.

Penn’s new AAAS fellows:

William Beltran is the Corinne R. and Henry Bower Professor of Ophthalmology in the Department of Clinical Sciences and Advanced Medicine and director of the Division of Experimental Retinal Therapies in the School of Veterinary Medicine. His research focuses on inherited retinal degeneration, a major cause of blindness in dogs and humans worldwide. Working in canines who suffer from forms of retinal degeneration that closely mimic human disease, Beltran has helped develop effective gene therapies with promising results for treating both early- and late-stage disease. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the ARVO Foundation/Merck Innovative Ophthalmology Research Award, Foundation Fighting Blindness Board of Directors Research Award, Pfizer Ophthalmics Carl Camras Translational Research Award, and 2019 Inventor of the Year Award from the Penn Center for Innovation. He is a fellow of the College of Physicians in Philadelphia and a member of the National Academy of Medicine and Académie Vétérinaire de France.

Brian D. Gregory is professor of biology and graduate chair in the School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Biology. Gregory has pioneered the development and use of high-throughput sequencing and computational biology approaches to study the structure, modification, and interactions of ribonucleic acid (RNA), primarily working in plants. Elucidating the dynamics of RNA, Gregory’s studies have highlighted previously unappreciated regulatory processes that affect how genes are expressed or silenced. His insights into RNA regulation have important implications in plant biology but also extend to understanding gene regulation in other species, including humans. Training students to employ new genetic and computational technologies is a focus for Gregory, who has mentored dozens at all levels, including more than 50 undergraduates in his lab. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Career Award, the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by an Assistant Professor, and a University of Pennsylvania Department of Biology Excellence in Teaching Award, among other honors.

Insup Lee is the Cecilia Fitler Moore Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science and director of the PRECISE Center. He holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering and in the Perelman School of Medicine’s Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, & Informatics. His research seeks to assure and Boost the correctness, safety, and timeliness of life-critical embedded systems and involves finding fundamental and practical solutions to problems of modeling, control, simulation, operation, formal design, and implementation of cyber-physical systems and internet-of-medical things. Lee is an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) fellow and an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) fellow. He has received the IEEE Technical Community on Real-Time Systems Outstanding Technical Achievement and Leadership Award and the ACM Special Interest Group on Embedded Systems Inaugural Distinguished Leadership Award.

Guo-li Ming is a Perelman Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Neuroscience and a member of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. She received her medical training on child and maternal care from Tongji Medical University in China and her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego. After postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, she joined Johns Hopkins University. Research in the Ming Lab centers on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal development and its dysregulation using mouse systems and patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells. Ming has received a number of awards, including the Charles E. Culpeper Scholarship in Medical Science, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience, and A. E. Bennett Research Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry. She is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Eric J. Schelter is a professor in the Department of Chemistry in the School of Arts & Sciences. His primary areas of focus lie mostly in synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry to address problems in critical metals separations, develop new materials with quantum properties, understand the roles of f-elements in biology, and gain insight into their unique chemical bonding. Among his many honors, Schelter has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, received the American Chemical Society Inorganic Chemistry Lectureship Award and the Anders Gustaf Ekeberg Tantalum Prize, and served as an editorial advisory board member on the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.

Theodore Schurr is a professor in the Department of Anthropology in the School of Arts & Sciences, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Anthropology at Penn, and a consulting curator in the Physical Anthropology and American sections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. For more than three decades, Schurr has conducted anthropological genetics research, combining ethnographic field research with the laboratory analysis of DNA samples collected for his projects. Though his research has focused largely on elucidating the population history of Siberia and the Americas, other studies have involved populations from parts of the world such as Turkey, Georgia, Pakistan, and Australia. From 2005 to 2020, Schurr was director of the North American Center of the Genographic Project. During this time, he and his team conducted research with indigenous and native descendant populations from Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, and the United States.

Warren D. Seider is a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science who has made significant contributions to the fields of computer-aided process analysis, simulation, design, and control. Seider works on phase and chemical equilibria, azeotropic distillation, heat and power integration, Czochralski crystallization, algae growth to biofuels, nonlinear control, and safety and risk analysis. He is recognized for foundational research, simulation software, teaching, and service contributions to the field of computer-aided process design and control. Seider has authored or co-authored more than 165 journal articles and co-authored several textbooks, including “Product and Process Design Principles: Synthesis, Analysis, and Evaluation,” and “FLOWTRAN Simulation: An Introduction.” He is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Karen I. Winey is the Harold Pender Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Winey’s research, which focuses on the nanoscale structures in ionomers and associating polymers to Boost mechanical and transport properties, has recently reported new structures in several precise ionomers. She contributed to polymer science, particularly in the understanding and manipulation of unique polymer nanocomposites and ion-containing polymers. In addition to numerous lectureships, fellowships, and awards, she recently received the Braskem Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Herman F. Mark Senior Scholar Award, and will receive the 2023 American Chemistry Society Award in Polymer Chemistry.

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The Ottawa Hospital is opening up its operating rooms at the Riverside Campus on Saturdays for orthopedic surgeries, to help clear the backlog of hip and knee replacement surgeries.

Ottawa's largest hospital is working with the Academic Orthopedic Association of Ottawa to increase capacity for orthopedic procedures.

The hospital says in line with the Ontario government's plan to expand surgical capacity, the Academic Orthopedic Association of Ottawa members will perform orthopedic surgeries at the Riverside Campus on Saturdays, starting Feb. 25.

"This surgical space was previously unused on weekends," the Ottawa Hospital said in a statement.

"This follows last year’s successful partnership between TOH and Focus Eye Center, which has provided additional capacity for cataract surgery, and ensured that patients across the Ottawa region have increased access to all ophthalmology procedures."

The Ottawa Hospital says it currently has an orthopedic surgery waitlist of 2,065 patients.

Statistics from the Ontario government shows 16 per cent of patients waiting for hip replacement surgery at the Ottawa Hospital were treated within the target time. Priority 3 patients, who should be treated within a target time of 84 days, were waiting an average of 402 days at the General Campus in December, according to the Ontario government data.

Knee surgery patients were waiting 122 days for surgery at the Ottawa Hospital Riverside Campus and 151 days at the General Campus in December, according to the statistics. The target time is 84 days for Priority 3 patients.

"TOH has also worked closely with regional hospitals, including Renfrew, Hawkesbury and Kemptville, to expand surgical volumes and Boost access to care for patients," the Ottawa Hospital said.

Lycoming College has announced preferred admission for qualified students to Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) for its Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree program. The recently signed articulation agreement includes a commitment by PCOM to offer up to three spots annually for Lycoming College graduates who meet entrance requirements and are approved by the admissions committee at the private, not-for-profit medical school in Philadelphia, beginning in the 2023-24 academic year.

For more than a century, PCOM has trained highly competent, caring physicians, health practitioners and behavioral scientists who practice a “whole person” approach–treating people, not just symptoms.

The program is accredited by the Commission of Osteopathic College Accreditation of the American Osteopathic Association. Graduates of PCOM can enter a wide variety of specialties including general practice, general internal medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, general surgery, neurology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, pathology, otolaryngology and facial plastic surgery, physical medicine and rehab, psychiatry, radiology, urological surgery and urology.

“We are delighted to be working with PCOM to help guide highly-capable students toward a path that will help them fulfill their dreams of serving communities as health care providers,” said Kent C. Trachte, president of Lycoming College. “Lycoming College has a long history of graduating high-performing students who are medical school-bound. This agreement will increase medical school admissions for our students and provide a clear pathway from enrollment at Lycoming College through completion of the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree.”

Lycoming College’s curriculum offers multiple majors that can serve as a pathway to health professions including biology, biochemistry, neuroscience, and psychology. With faculty dedicated exclusively to the education of undergraduate students, an abundance of opportunities for research experience in top-notch facilities, internships with regional health and human services organizations, and close mentorship through our interdisciplinary Health Professions Advisory Committee (HPAC), Lycoming students are prepared to become exceptional health care providers and leaders.

“Our agreement with Lycoming College directly supports the PCOM mission to educate health professionals to care for the whole person and advance the health of diverse communities,” said PCOM President and CEO Jay S. Feldstein, DO ’81. “We hope that this partnership ultimately improves access to high-quality health care.”

More information is available at https://www.lycoming.edu/pre-medical/.