Boneham
  Optometrist
    Eyecare Plus

Boneham Optometrists is a continuation of the original practice that started in the State Theatre Building in 1930 when Clifford Wilson started an opticians practice in the building. This was taken over by Penhryn Thomas, one of the pioneers of the Australian contact lens industry who helped bring the wonder of contact lenses to Sydney. He designed his own contact lenses that were used by many of those who fitted this new technology.

The practice was taken over by Charles McMonnies in the 1960’s. He continued the work with contact lenses but he also had other interests including treating many children through his establishment of the Threshold program. This program brought together practitioners from a number of disciplines to treat children with learning difficulties. Along with this he has always been involved in University work, lecturing to many optometrists and also conducting research. He finished clinical practice in 2007 and continues doing research on the eye.

Gavin Boneham joined the practice as a part time optometrist in 1995 while he was finishing his PhD on blood vessel growth. Over time he increased his involvement with the practice combining this with a part time lecturer position at the School of Optometry UNSW. In 2009 he resigned from the University to devote more time to the practice. He is currently a visiting fellow at the School of Optometry and continues to teach there. He also collaborates with Charles McMonnies in his research projects. His main interests are contact lens fitting of difficult corneas and orthokeratology (He is the current President of the Orthokeratology Society of Oceania).

The practice has always prided itself on providing an excellent service to our patients. Continuing exposure to the University ensures we stay up to date with the latest clinical techniques. Our involvement with research also ensures that we are helping increase the profession’s knowledge of how the eye works.

Optometry today is very different from when the practice was first begun. At that time optometrists were involved with fitting of a limited range of frames with glass lenses. Nowadays Optometry is an exciting combination of health care and retail. With improving technology, in practice we can now detect and diagnose disease much earlier. Digital retinal imaging allows us to examine the all-important macula and optic nerve for signs of macula degeneration and glaucoma. Advances in mapping of the cornea, using corneal topography, allows us to detect corneal distortion much earlier and to custom design lenses for those of our patients with unusually shaped corneas.

To learn more, log onto
www.bonehamoptom.com.au or www.eyecareplus.com.au/sydney