|
|
Optometry students from Northern Ireland used to have to travel to the mainland or else to a course across the border in the Republic of Ireland. This changed in the mid 1990s when a brand new optometry department was opened at the University of Ulster's campus in Coleraine, a small town in the far north of the province. Many students were now able to combine a course at Coleraine with a beach lifestyle at the nearby resorts of Portrush or Portstewart. An honours degree programme in optometry was launched in October 1995 under the direction of Dr Bernie Hannigan with Dr Roger Anderson as Senior Lecturer, supported by Dr Chris Hudson. At the time it was the first new optometry course to be developed in the United Kingdom for nearly fifty years. The first year's intake of 26 students included 16 from the province, 8 from the Republic, 1 from England and 1 from Slovenia. The University Optometry Clinic was completed in January 1996 and opened by Professor Anthony Cullen, then President of the American Academy of Optometry, on 11 March. Professor Cullen was also Dean of the School of Optometry at the University of Waterloo in Canada, with which the new department was to establish a student exchange programme. Close links were also fostered with the ophthalmology department at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine itself.