Eye stuff

So I work in the research department of a place called The College of Optometrists, which is the professional body for optometrists.

What are they, you may ask? They are the people who tell you whether you need glasses or have eye disease, so what most people call an optician. They're actually ophthalmic opticians, otherwise known as optometrists, as opposed to dispensing opticians (who sort out the glasses).

But aaaaaaanyway.....I've had the chance to write some stuff, in particular some blogs, about this and that to do with optometric research and good research practice more generally. If you've ever read Ben Goldacre's dissection of how the press misrepresent research then it's been a bit like that. And one about going to Disneyland.

So here's a few of them. Although they're for optometrists, the aim is for the research stuff to be understood by a lay audience. And hey, isn't Disneyland for everyone? NO, IT'S REALLY EXPENSIVE.

Some of these were collaborations, so thank you to everyone who's ever helped me ever.

Where do you get your information from? (May 2018)
What systematic reviews are, why they matter and the great contribution of the Cochrane Collaboration.

Who's right? (February 2017)
About the questions to ask of a piece of evidence to see if it can be trusted.

CET and Mickey Mouse (November 2016)
My adventures at an American conference in Anaheim, California (home to, yes, Disneyland).

Bigger (data) is better (August 2016)
How collecting patient data in a consistent way allows us to know much more about the public's eye health.

How do we see? (March 2016)
A conversation about how the eyes and the brain combine to create our visual perception.

It's got to be (im)perfect (February 2016)
About false positives, false negatives and the necessary trade-off between the two.

What's in a number? (January 2016)
An explainer about prevalence and incidence, and how useful those numbers are when talking to individual patients.

What just wrecked the mic? Hopefully not me.... (October 2015)
My experience of interviewing two legends for a podcast.