Lillehammer, Optician | Brilliant victory for Heidi

Refset, who originally comes from Mo i Rana, works at Interoptik Andresen in Lillehammer. It was during the NM in optometry during the national meeting of the Norwegian Association of Opticians in Kongsberg that she got the visible proof that she is one of the country’s best opticians.

Best of all

The participants have to go through two preliminary rounds with a number of academic questions of varying difficulty, before the top three meet in the final.

Refset, who has two master’s degrees and several continuing education courses, specializes in working with children. But she finds it exciting to follow the eyes through a lifetime.

– The eyes of us humans change throughout our lives. With children, it is most important to monitor strabismus and refractive error and that the eyes develop normally, and when aging sets in, the eye diseases come. The eyes are one of the most complex things we have, and are closely connected to the rest of the body. That is one of the reasons why it is so exciting to be an optician, she says, according to a press release from the Norwegian Association of Opticians.

Alhan Al Madi from Brilleland and Frank Myhre from Synsam also took part in the National Championship final.

NM in optometry has been organized for 18 years. This year, a total of 76 opticians progressed from the preliminary final. The participants come from all optician chains, hospitals, NAV and the professional community.

Glaucoma

This year there were many questions related to glaucoma and glaucoma, says NM general Hans Torvald Haugo, who is also general secretary of the Norwegian Opticians’ Association.

Opticians come into contact with people of all ages and many elderly people get glaucoma and need thorough examination and follow-up. Although it is ophthalmologists who treat glaucoma, opticians have an important role in detecting and following up their patients at risk of developing glaucoma.

Heidi Rygh Refseth has been committed to her colleagues and the optician profession for a long time. She has sat on the board of the Norwegian Opticians’ Association for many years, and is currently acting chairman.

– My commitment is about the population getting the best possible vision care, that opticians should be able to contribute more to relieving the specialist health service, and that opticians should be remunerated correctly, she says in the press release.