Released on = May 22, 2007, 7:25 pm

Press Release Author = Prof BR Natarajan

Industry = Healthcare

Press Release Summary = Hope is like a road in a country where there was never a
road but when many people start walking on it, the road comes into existence. BITS
Pilani along with its collaborators indeed has been walking the Health Care Delivery
Road in India today through the ranked among the best Optometry, Physician Assistant
and Medical Laboratory Technology Programmes.

Press Release Body = For millions of people around the world, receiving quality eye
care is an enormous struggle. Lack of good educational programs in Optometry and
poor practitioner-to-patient ratio adds to the woes of developing countries. With
nearly 25 % of the global blindness data, India has just about 3,000 Optometrists
which is highly inadequate.

For every 100,000 population in India, we have 1.50 Ophthalmologists to 0.60
Optometrists while Australia has 3.30 : 12.50, Canada has 3.30 : 10.26, New Zealand
2 : 10, UK 1.06 : 13.27 and USA 5.70 to 10.99. This shows where we stand in quality
eye care. Blindness prevention needs Optometry and with the population of India
hitting the billion mark, approximately 100,000 more Optometrists are needed to
adequately care for those in need.

BITS Pilani in addition to a MS Medical Laboratory Technology programme, has been
offering for the past over a decade BS and MPhil degree Programs in Optometry in
collaboration with the Elite School of Optometry, a constituent institution of the
Medical Research Foundation established by Sankara Nethralaya, the Chennai based
premier eye care and research centre. For the past 7 years BITS, Pilani has also
been offering the BS Optometry program in collaboration with Bausch & Lomb School of
Optometry established by the L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad.

In the mid 60s, the Physician Assistant (PA) program was developed by Dr Eugene
Stead, Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Duke University, North Carolina,
USA to train health care professionals for rural areas which faced dwindling numbers
of physicians and nurses. Physician Assistants are medically trained professionals
who by working closely with their supervising physicians can provide comprehensive
health care services and quality medical care and be important members of the health
care delivery team of any nation.

BITS Pilani has been offering for the past over a decade BS Physician Assistant
programme in collaboration with Madras Medical Mission, Chennai and for the last two
years with Frontier Lifeline, Chennai. The objective of the PA program of BITS,
Pilani is to prepare students to provide quality care for a diverse population in a
changing health care environment through an education based in Modern Medicine with
a focus on Holistic Thinking.

Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani is one among the top
ranking universities in India today offering degrees in Engineering, Management,
Economics, Pharmacy, Sciences, Engineering Technology, Information Systems, General
Studies, Finance, etc presently at Pilani, Dubai, Goa campuses and in the near
future at Hyderabad campus. BITS Pilani also offers an array of work integrated
learning programmes for HRD of a vast spectrum of Indian corporates.

Web Site = http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/dlp-home

Contact Details = Prof BR Natarajan
Dean Work Integrated Learning Programmes
Birla Institute of Technology and Science
Pilani (Rajasthan) 333031 India
Phone 91-1596-242210
Fax 91-1596-244183
brnt@bits-pilani.ac.in