Join your health professional peers at the 2025 Glaucoma NZ Professional Education Symposium.
9am – 4:45 pm,
Sunday 13 July 2025,
The Maritime Room, Viaduct Harbour, Auckland, or online via Zoom.
ODOB accredited – 6.9 GE points
This one-day event offers you a new interactive program of interesting cases & updates in glaucoma management, convened by world-leading ophthalmologist Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer.
The theme “The Role of Optometrists and Real-World Glaucoma” sets the tone for the day: pragmatic, empowering, and unapologetically focused on excellence in front-line decision-making. Download the GNZ Professional Education Symposium Programme 2025, which features keynote speaker Aparna Raniga.
The symposium is open to all health professionals and students. (Optometrists, Nurses, Orthoptists, & Technicians) ODOB credits will be awarded to Optometrists, and certificates of attendance will be sent to all attendees following the event.
Optometrists are often the first and sometimes only point of contact for patients with glaucoma—yet their central role in glaucoma care is frequently under-recognised.
In this keynote, Dr Aparna Raniga will challenge traditional hierarchies in eye care and demonstrate how optometrists can lead meaningful intervention at every stage of the disease.
Drawing on data from collaborative care models and her own extensive experience, she will examine the practical and systemic barriers to timely diagnosis and treatment—including missed cues, resource gaps, and the psychological disconnect patients experience when faced with a silent, progressive disease.
Dr Raniga will outline how optometrists can rise to meet these challenges: by mastering risk stratification, building confidence in structural and functional testing, and using persuasive communication to improve compliance. Emphasis will be placed on the realities of practice: limited time, financial constraints, and uncertainty.
Dr Aparna Raniga
Ophthalmologist with subspecialist training in glaucoma, cataract and uveitis.
Dr Aparna Raniga is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists, and a subspecialist glaucoma and cataract surgeon with two years of dedicated post-fellowship training in Switzerland and Canada. Dr Raniga provides the highest standard of evidence-based management and surgical treatment for patients with glaucoma and cataracts.
Dr Raniga provides comprehensive care for patients with glaucoma. She specialises in MIGS, deep sclerectomy, trabeculectomy and tube shunt surgery. She is also extensively trained in state-of-the-art topical cataract surgery in glaucoma patients.
Dr Raniga graduated from the University of Otago (NZ) with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) in 2006. She then completed specialist training in Ophthalmology with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (FRANZCO) in 2015. She completed her final year of training as the Eye Casualty Senior Registrar at the Sydney Eye Hospital. Dr Raniga gained extensive experience in diagnosing and managing a wide variety of eye emergencies presenting to this quaternary referral centre. During this time, she supervised ten junior RANZCO trainees.
SWISS EXPERIENCE
Dr Raniga is the first RANZCO Fellow to complete a one-year fellowship in glaucoma surgery and uveitis at the prestigious Bern University Hospital. She was mentored by Professor Iliev, who is a pre-eminent glaucoma surgeon in Switzerland. She had the privilege to receive intensive training in deep sclerectomy and trabeculectomy. Dr Raniga also gained experience in managing patients with uveitis.
CANADIAN EXPERIENCE
Dr Raniga’s second glaucoma fellowship was at the Ivey Eye Institute, University of Western Ontario. She was mentored by Associate Professors Tingey and Motolko and Professor Hutnik.
This institute has an excellent reputation as one of the best in Canada. Dr Raniga focussed on gaining further experience in high volume cataract surgery and trabeculectomy. She also designed and instituted a randomised control trial investigating the efficacy of Laser (SLT) in treatment naïve glaucoma patients.
PATIENT FOCUS
Dr Raniga is an excellent communicator with world-class training that allows her to provide the latest evidence-based care with a patient centred approach. She is a comprehensive Ophthalmologist with subspecialist training in glaucoma, cataract and uveitis.