#16 The Myopia Podcast: Dr. Monica Jong: Innovative Research on Myopia Treatments

by | Oct 20, 2021 | PODCAST

🔖 Innovative Research involves looking for solutions – either to known, or sometimes to undefined needs. It’s essentially an investment in technology and future capabilities which is transformed into new products, processes, and services.

We are truly grateful to be joined by Dr. Monica Jong the former executive director International Myopia Institute on this episode of The Myopia Podcast

Let’s pick her brain and know the things that we need and we want to know about innovative research on myopia treatments.

In this episode we will learn: 

📍 Why myopia is considered a disease now that we need to address and change the viewpoints globally. 

📍 The prevalence of myopia and high myopia is increasing globally at an alarming rate, with significant increases in the risks for vision impairment from pathologic conditions associated with high myopia, including retinal damage, cataract, and glaucoma.

📍 The different studies that can help us understand myopia treatments. 

📍 How to prevent someone from going myopic, or prevent that person eventually developing high myopia. How preventive health is so powerful. 

 As Dr. David Kading said, “It's far safer for us to treat these children than to wait”.

Dr. Jong will also share with us more information about spectacle lenses worldwide that are being used for myopia.

About Dr. Monica Jong:

Assistant Professor, Discipline of Optometry, University of Canberra, Australia
Asia Optometric Myopia Academy (AOMA) Advisor
Visiting Fellow, School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of New South Wales,
Sydney
Secretary of the Refractive Error Working Group, International Agency for the Prevention of
Blindness

Former International Myopia Institute (IMI) Executive Director, BHVI Sydney
Monica is a graduate from the Optometry program at the University of Melbourne, where
she also completed her PhD investigating the structure and function relationship using
optical coherence tomography in inherited retinal disease She then undertook a
postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Toronto in
retinal imaging and blood flow in diabetic eye disease. Monica is the former Executive
Director of the International Myopia Institute (IMI), the premier working group of over one
experts in the field of myopia established after the first WHO-BHVI Meeting on Myopia in
2015 to advance myopia research, education and patient care, to prevent future vision
impairment and blindness. Monica led the IMI from its inception in 2015 until late 2021 and
under her direction the IMI has brought consensus to the area of myopia management,
published two volumes of white papers in the Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual
Sciences high impact journal, clinical summaries in up to fourteen languages, as well as a
chairside reference for practitioners. Monica has authored numerous peer reviewed
publications in the area of myopia and high myopia risk factors, pathology and
epidemiology. She co-authored the WHO report on the Impact of Myopia and High Myopia,
and was the co-creator of the first accredited global online myopia management education
program. Monica speaks regularly at key international scientific and practitioner meetings
between teaching and mentoring students.