| Ruskin eyes off new optometry practices
Ruskin Industries Ltd is casting a hopeful eye over 16 optometry practices in eastern NSW and Queensland, which it has agreed to purchase for $15.73 million. Ruskin on Friday announced it would change its name to Eyecare Partners Ltd and acquire the businesses following shareholder approval at its annual general meeting in late June. The 16 practices are all members of the marketing and buying group Eyecare Plus Ltd. Ruskin directors said the $15.73 million purchase price would be satisfied by the issue of Ruskin shares (post consolidation) at 20 cents each to the vendors, and the undertaking of two capital raisings. On completion, the vendors will hold about 80 per cent of Ruskin, with existing and new investors holding the remaining 20 per cent.
Blind Fundraiser
WHILE many of us may take our sight for granted students at Drumragh Integrated College are all too aware of the lack of facilities for blind and shortsighted people in developing countries. The students are supporting Sightsavers in their work to combat blindness in areas where there is little access to modern facilities. Pupils are delighted to be able to raise funds for the Sightsavers charity which reaches out to 33 developing countries to restore eyesight, using cataract operations or even providing something as simple as glasses. Tomorrow (Friday) a bake sale will take place at Drumragh Integrated College's Easter Fair. At the fair there will be a cake stand and various amusements including 'Guess the Name of the Dog.' The following Friday, March 30, the college will host the Drumquin Players' production of Drumquin Fair Day.
More doctors leave Toledo
The University of Toledo's College of Medicine saw 151 students paired to residency programs a week ago today. Only 12 are staying in northwest Ohio, with nine of those beginning a UT residency program. The rest are headed to hospitals throughout the United States.
Jeff Gold, provost and executive vice president for health affairs and dean of the College of Medicine, said that this is a problem for UT and the city of Toledo.
"At a minimum, it's been a decade-long problem in this community - at a minimum," he said.
UT President Lloyd Jacobs agreed.
"We believe the city of Toledo will face a lack of physicians of crisis proportions," he said.
In the past, the former Medical College of Ohio, now known as UT's Health Science Campus, retained a higher percentage of its residents.
1 Donor Cornea May Treat 3 Patients
One donor cornea may be divided and transplanted into multiple patients with eye disease or damage, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Transplantation of the cornea, the clear membrane that covers the front of the eye, was first performed in 1905, according to background information in the article. Recent developments have allowed ophthalmologic surgeons to move from transplanting the entire cornea in every patient to more focused operations that involve removing and replacing only the diseased or damaged portion of the cornea. "Such surgical techniques provide an opportunity to make use of a single donor cornea in more than one patient," the authors write.
Rasik B. Vajpayee, M.S., F.R.C.S., F.R.A.N.Z.C.O., then of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and now of the University of Melbourne, East Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues used one cornea from a 44-year-old donor who had died of cardiac arrest to complete transplants in three patients.
'IEEE Spectrum' wins Grand Neal for ‘Re-engineering Iraq'
As the war rages on in Iraq, economic and political stability will be tough to come by without first reconstructing electrical and communications networks, said Glenn Zorpette, executive editor of IEEE Spectrum, the flagship publication of the IEEE, the world's largest professional technology association.
Zorpette should know. Early last year he spent 11 days in Iraq investigating the struggle to reconstruct the country's electrical grids amid growing sectarian violence. "There's a feeling that the chaos in Iraq is linked to a lack of critical infrastructure, which leads to a lack of economic activity," Zorpette said. "There were several Iraqi engineers who spoke to me, and some of them even let me take their picture, which could have meant death."
Zorpette has been rewarded for his tenacity and his passion for communicating a complicated story.
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