My name is Kirstin and I am an Orthoptist. As an orthoptist I specialise in diagnosing and managing a range of eye conditions that can affect eye movement and visual development in adults and children. An Orthoptist is an Allied Health Professional (AHP) and are registered with HCPC.
Originally, I wanted to do Medicine but unfortunately I did not achieve the grades to allow me to do that, so I went back to the drawing board. I then thought “what about Optometry?” I went to the open day at Glasgow Caledonian University (at the time this was the only university in Scotland doing this course) and got introduced to an Orthoptic lecturer who told me about Orthoptics. I had never heard of this. It ticked all my boxes: working in a hospital setting, working with kids/adults and lots of variety! 4 years later, I graduated in 2018 with a 2:1 BSc (Hons) degree in Orthoptics from GCU. I was in the 3rd year to complete the new Orthoptic course at GCU as it had taken a break to restructure as previously it was a diploma course. I started working in February 2019 as a band 5 orthoptist at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness where I completed my flying start modules to obtain my band 6 in March 2020. As an Ayrshire girl, I was so excited when I got my current orthoptic post within NHS Ayrshire and Arran in October 2022.
Orthoptics at Glasgow Caledonian University is unique as it is the only university in Scotland that offers the course and it is the only University in the UK where you will graduate in Orthoptics with an honours degree. The programme is made up of several modules over 4 years which includes clinical placement modules where you will be allocated a hospital to put the theory you have learned at university into clinical practice. GCU offers daily placements where one day per week you will be in clinic, so you really are hands on from day one.
A typical day at work for me is seeing a wide variety of patients, from very young babies to the elderly all having something different affecting their eyes, not one day is the same, you have to be adaptable. I also visit nurseries and primary schools to do all pre-school children’s eye tests. Orthoptics as a profession is always changing with more people having more advanced clinical roles, such as glaucoma, medical retina, first assistant in theatre and many more. Orthoptists work as part of a multi-disciplinary team including ophthalmologists, optometrists and nurses. We also work very closely with our visual field technicians and Orthoptic Support workers.
The most rewarding part of my job is seeing the reaction from your patients after you have been able to help them, from parent’s relief that their child’s vision is improving by wearing their patch to an adult who doesn’t have double vision because I was able to help them by giving them a prism. I have loved the last 4 and a half years working and representing this small profession and I am proud of the work that Orthoptists do for our patients. I hope as I progress through my career I can continue to advance my clinical skills into more advanced roles and continue to help my patients. Let’s see what the future holds!