‘We are innately horrified by the eyeball’: Why this ophthalmologist is teaching GPs to perform intravitreal injections
84% of ophthalmologists are based in major cities, meaning many patients are driving for hours for this common procedure.
Bread and butter for ophthalmologists, intravitreal injections are not part of most GPs’ repertoires.
Until now.
A team of ophthalmologists have started teaching intravitreal injection (IVI) technique to GPs in rural Queensland as part of a new pilot.
Its lead, the ophthalmologist Associate Professor Tom Campbell, says that GPs have the skills needed for IVI but the main barrier can be a mental one, given it involves inserting a needle at an angle, through the sclera, to deposit medicine into the vitreous gel.
