Gordon Sanderson Scholars

The Gordon Sanderson Scholarship

Awarded annually to an optometry or medical student from the universities of Otago, Sydney or Auckland for research or education relating to glaucoma,  the scholarship was established in memory of Associate Professor Gordon Sanderson, a founding trustee of Glaucoma New Zealand (GNZ) and passionate eye health educator in both New Zealand and Australia.

2021 Scholarship Recipient

Pratik Chandra

Pratik Chandra is currently a final year medical student at The University of Otago, Wellington and became interested in
Ophthalmology during his attachment at the Wellington Hospital Eye Department.

Since then, he has pursued further research opportunities and clinical exposure to the specialty. In 2019, he helped to undertake a survey project called “New Zealand ophthalmologists’ opinions and behaviours on climate, carbon, and sustainability” which was successfully published in Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology. On the strength of this, Pratik won a scholarship to attend the RANZCO Annual Scientific Congress in Sydney in 2019. Pratik was honoured when he was awarded the Gordon Sanderson Scholarship and is excited to be working alongside Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer and Dr Michael Wang.

Pratik’s project is aimed at determining if educational interventions can improve patient knowledge of glaucoma and improve adherence to glaucoma therapy. Low illness knowledge leads to reduced adherence to therapy and poor outcomes in patients with glaucoma, as well as several other chronic illnesses. The study will be conducted via two telephone interviews. The first interview will be to determine baseline disease knowledge, adherence, and to provide education. Study participants will also be sent educational material via mail. The second interview will be a follow up interview done at four weeks to assess if there were any changes to disease knowledge and adherence after the provision of education. This is one of the first studies done in New Zealand aimed at determining the possible benefits of patient education for glaucoma and builds on similar research done in Australia. The study will utilise the Auckland Glaucoma Knowledge Questionnaire (AGKQ) to determine patient knowledge and will use information material provided by Glaucoma New Zealand as a basis for the education provided.

2020 Scholarship Recipient

Aqeeda Singh

Aqeeda Singh worked with the Dunedin Study, a world-renowned longitudinal study that has been following the lives of 1037 babies born in the greater Dunedin metropolitan area between 1 April 1972 and 31 March 1973 to understand the factors leading to significant health and social outcomes in life in particular glaucoma.

2019 Scholarship Recipient

Blair Lowry

Blair Lowry was a Gordon Sanderson Scholarship recipient in 2019, where he conducted research investigating the epidemiology of acute angle-closure glaucoma at Greenlane Clinical Centre. His research focused on identifying important demographic parameters that might identify which groups are more susceptible to developing an acute angle closure crisis, and ideally, those at-risk populations.

2018 Scholarship Recipient

Waldir Rodrigues De Souza Jr

Fourth year medical student Waldir Rodrigues De Souza Jr from the University of Otago, was introduced as the latest Gordon Sanderson scholar at the 2019 RANZCO NZ conference for his research into applying artificial intelligence (AI) to detect glaucoma.

Like others around the world Dr Souza’s research focused on training a deep learning algorithm to detect glaucoma, which the team achieved with ‘exciting sensitivity and specificity,’ he said

2018 Scholarship Recipient

Dr Hilary Goh

Hilary’s research suggests that glaucoma patients tend to have disorganized nailfold capillaries with reduced capillary density and more avascular zones. The presence of disorganized nailfold capillaries, avascular zones and hemorrhages are also associated with increased glaucoma severity and central vision loss. This shows that vascular abnormalities in glaucoma extend beyond the eye and that nailfold capillaroscopy is a potential adjunct that can be used clinically for glaucoma screening and assessment.