“The Department of Contact Lens, Sankara Nethralaya, Medical Research Foundation in collaboration with Silver Line Laboratories (Blanchard lenses, CooperVision Specialty EyeCare conducted a Two-day workshop on Specialty Contact Lenses to for all the practitioners covering the fitting aspects of the specialty lenses and case-based approaches in various clinical settings on November 26th & 27th, 2022 (Saturday & Sunday). The main objective of this workshop was to train and reach private contact lens practitioners, ophthalmologists, postgraduates, and fellows on the concepts of Orthokeratology and Scleral Contact Lens fitting. This workshop has indeed met its purpose, and we have got around 35 registrants across the states with distinguished years of experience who had actively taken part on both days.

Dr. Sumitha Agarkar, Deputy Director, Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology welcomed the audience and briefed on the importance of Myopia management aspects in India. Following this, Ms. G. Aparna, Doctoral Researcher from the Myopia Clinic addressed the “Myopia control options practiced at our hospital “on the first day.

On the second day, Ms. S. Madhumathi, In-charge Contact Lens Clinic delivered a talk on the “Overall Scleral Lens fitting approaches” before the guest talk.

“For the first time in India, We had the honor of launching  Coopervision Eyecare’s FDA-approved Myopia control lens – Paragon CRT – Ortho K lenses and Onefit MED Scleral lenses” at Sankara Nethralaya during the Workshop.”

We had International and National Speakers, Mr. Moodi Kupperman, Global Professional Services, CooperVision Eyecare, and Mr. Gagan Sahni, Technical Director of Silverline Laboratories who had briefed on the fitting aspects of FDA-approved orthokeratology lenses – Paragon CRT lenses and OneFIT Med Scleral lenses.

We had brainstorming and interactive discussions with the guest Speakers on the fitting aspects of these specialty lenses in different case scenarios. 

We had a “LIVE fitting demonstration of the Specialty Contact Lenses “on two of our patients who gave their consent to participate in the workshop.

Also, Silver line Laboratories have come upon and agreed to waive the lens cost for those 2 deserving patients who participated in the LIVE demo fitting.

As a part of their support, they have contributed the “Onefit MED Scleral lens trial set to our Contact Lens Clinic “for encouraging many more lens fits.

All the participants received the participation certificates at the end of the workshop. Overall, the program was successful and garnered lots of positive remarks such as a “well-organized event and gain of good knowledge about the specialty lenses and suggestions to conduct more such Workshops in the future.”

The entire contact lens team, led by Ms. Madhumathi, including Ms. Karpaagavalli, Ms. Manju, Ms. Akshaya Balakrishnan, Mr. Ronit Dutta, Ms. Varsha Harinya, Ms. Flora Fathima Mary, and Ms. Glady, helped us from the flyer preparation to the patient’s coordination, and their efforts and active participation were instrumental in the workshop’s success. We thank Mr. Abdul Majid, Ms. Juliet, and Ms. Malliga for lending a hand during the workshop and taking care of the clinic.