VEW 2023: The greatest contact lens course ever offers a comprehensive overview of all things contact lens

Lyndon Jones, PhD, DSc, FCOptom, FAAO, caught up with Optometry Times®' assistant managing editor Emily Kaiser Maharjan to share a brief overview of his discussion, "The greatest contact lens course ever," which he presented at Vision Expo West 2023 in Las Vegas.

Editor's note: This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Emily Kaiser Maharjan:

Hi everyone. I'm Emily Kaiser Maharjan with Optometry Times, and I'm sitting down with Dr. Lyndon Jones, who is presenting, "The greatest contact lens course ever," at Vision Expo West 2023 in Las Vegas. Welcome Dr. Jones, happy you could join us.

Lyndon Jones, PhD, DSc, FCOptom, FAAO:

Thanks for the opportunity.

We've actually got what I think, again, is a great title—it wasn't one that I picked. It's called, "The greatest contact lens course ever," and how bold is that? I'm going to be talking on that, we're showing PAL. Jason Compton again, and Melissa Barnet. And overall, we've actually got between us more than 90 years experience, collectively fitting contact lenses. We're going to be looking at our top tips to basically help people who are there in terms of contact lens fitting, practice management, and treatment of contact lens complications.

The two areas that I'm specifically going to be talking about is, again, a futuristic concept, but one that we actually do see in the market at the moment, and that's drug eluting contact lenses. So we do now have the world's first commercially available drug delivering contact lens, we're going to be talking about the potential for that expanding, and also going to be looking at troubleshooting complications. How do we evaluate how contact lenses are performing? And how do we solve those problems? But more importantly, how do we avoid them?

Kaiser Maharjan:

Yeah, that sounds absolutely fascinating. Are there any new products or tech that you're discussing that you want to highlight?

Jones:

We'll be looking at new ways of being able to fit contact lenses. So new pieces of equipment we'll be discussing; we'll be looking at all of the newest and greatest contact lens materials, contact lens designs. Within "The greatest contact lens course ever," we're actually covering myopia; we're covering scleral lenses. So because of specialty lenses, we're covering ortho-k. You name it, we'll be covering it. And if it's new, you'll be able to see about it at Vision Expo West for sure.

Kaiser Maharjan:

So you kind of hinted at this, but what do you think the future of contact lenses will look like?

Jones:

I think it looks great. Honestly, I think we as clinicians, we probably underestimate just how good modern materials and modern designs are. I graduated back in the mid 80s, and at that time, honestly, fitting a toric lens, fitting a multifocal lens, I think I'd rather have a tooth pulled than do either of those because they were useless. Now we've got great products, we've got great daily disposables, great silicone hydrogels.

The potential, rich options that clinicians have to be able to fit our patients is enormous. And I think again, we forget the fact that, in my view, everyone should be what we call a dual wearer. Every spectacle wearer should be given that opportunity to wear contact lenses, because in one way or another, we'll be able to fit them with the lenses that we have now. Because we know that every spectacle wearer should have backup contact lenses, so why wouldn't every single spectacle wearer in your practice, be given that great option? So dual wear I think is another thing that really helps grow our practice.

Kaiser Maharjan:

Fantastic. That sounds like an absolutely incredible, incredible time. And thank you so much for taking the time to chat today, Dr. Jones, and I can't wait to hear more.

Jones:

Well, thanks again for the opportunity. Cheers.