Professor Harry Weisinger has confirmed that Deakin University’s new 3.5 year degree in Optometry, that will begin in 2012, will run across three 12 week trimesters.
This academic calendar, which is unique to optometry degrees in Australia, will enable the school to “offer the nation’s first accelerated combined-degree program in optometry”. Students will leave armed with a Bachelor of Vision Science and a Master of Optometry.
Prof. Weisinger told mivision that optometrists and other members of the profession have responded positively to plans for the course, which he says will have a regional emphasis. “Practitioners in regional areas without optometry schools are particularly upbeat about a new stream of optometrists,” he said.
“On a more general level, the profession is positive about our aim to provide a course that is more well rounded. As well as building clinical knowledge, it aims to create an understanding of the professional environment in which optometrists work – they way that suppliers, professional bodies and the Optometry Board fit in. It will also build commercial knowledge.”
Having offered such a dramatically different course when compared against Melbourne University’s seven year model for optometry, Prof Weisinger said “people are looking forward to
finding out what type of characters apply.”
