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UWA graduate Dr Angus Turner has already known several career landmarks: there was the Rhodes Scholarship that took him to Oxford to hone his skills as an eye surgeon and, in 2010, his founding of Lions Outback Vision that takes eye health services to regional and remote communities where vision loss is a devastating problem. Each year the service reaches 5,000 people in the Pilbara, Kimberley, Great Southern and Goldfields and it recently won him the recognition of the First Among Equals Award at the WA Business News 40Under40 Awards.

However, one suspects that for this graduate scholarships and awards are entirely trumped by the reward of restoring sight to a Jigalong grandmother who was able to see her 13-year-old granddaughter for the first time. Blind for many years, Mavis Arnott was among several eye patients who had boarded a chartered flight to Port Hedland for cataract surgery performed by Dr Turner.

“It’s truly rewarding when vision can be restored,” says Dr Turner. “It’s also rewarding being part of the dynamic team that makes it happen. Eye health is all about teamwork; nothing happens in isolation. In Mavis’ case, it was telehealth and an optometrist who brought her to the attention of Lions Outback Vision.”

Dr Turner says gaps in visual care for remote patients have been recognised for a long time and many have tackled the problem over the last five decades. He sees himself as accepting the baton from Indigenous eye health pioneers such as Father Frank Flynn and Professor Ida Mann who undertook the first survey of trachoma in the 1950s and 60s, and from the legendary Professor Fred Hollows and WA ophthalmologists Dr Philip House and Dr Peter Graham (a UWA graduate).

While preventable diseases such as trachoma continue to rob remote community residents of their sight, Dr Turner believes we are now better able to reduce the loss of sight caused by diabetes and macular degeneration. His long-term vision is optimistic.

“The way we treat eye disease has changed a lot in the last decade, with more devices for investigating and treating common conditions. Mobile facilities can take care to people and close the gap that sees too many rural and remote residents suffering from preventable diseases,” says Dr Turner.

“Today we have Aboriginal health workers screening patients for diabetic changes in the eye and optometrists checking primary eye care. The main role of Lions Outback Vision is to help coordinate the teams of people required for areas with workforce shortages, so that the three areas of eye health are integrated. We’re all working to improve access so these patients have the same levels of care that city people enjoy.”

Dr Turner heads Indigenous Eye Health at UWA’s Centre of Ophthalmology and Visual Science and teaches in the Rural Clinical School of WA. He is also a Consultant Ophthalmologist at the UWA-affiliated Lions Eye Institute. You can see an interview with Dr Turner at:  youtube.com/ watch?v=pJzWPC9hUFw

Photo: Dr Angus Turner with patient Mavis Arnott (Photo:  Alan McDonald, Fred Hollows Foundation)