Ohlrich Eye Centre: a 50

Jun 13, 2023

The Ohlrich Eye Centre has been providing ophthalmic care to the Brisbane community out of the same building for more than 50 years. Insight reflects on the Ohlrich legacy, and what the future holds for this iconic practice.

Ophthalmology has grown and changed since Dr John Ohlrich established the Ohlrich Eye Centre in 1975. With his son, Dr Stephen Ohlrich, at the helm, the practice has remained firmly at the forefront of ophthalmic expertise. Now, as Stephen nears retirement, he is preparing to pass the baton to the next generation. Located in Coorparoo, the family practice is going on the market for the first time in five decades. Today, Stephen reflects on his family’s legacy and the progress of ophthalmology.

“It was a different world when my father, John, opened the practice. At that time, there were only about 100 ophthalmologists across Australia. Now, there are 10 times as many,” Stephen explains.

Dr John Ohlrich was part of the inaugural venture of the National Trachoma and Eye health program with Professor Fred Hollows at “a time when an ophthalmic consultation could be and, in this case, was, conducted on the tail gate of a flat-bed truck,” Stephen reflects.

John believed in research, teaching and improving the delivery of eyecare. “Blindness is both treatable and preventable,” was his mantra, Stephen recalls.

“He wanted a professorial eye unit, and he single-handedly raised the funds to support this venture,” Stephen says. “In order to achieve this, he raised the sleeping giant of fund raising – the Lions. At one memorable Lions branch meeting he announced ‘I will sell 100 dozen Lion’s Christmas cakes. What are the rest of you going to do?’. As a medical student, I delivered these cakes to all the ophthalmology practices in Brisbane in my rusty Holden ute.”

Ultimately, John raised the money to establish a Chair of Ophthalmology in Queensland. He was also instrumental in establishing the Prevent Blindness Foundation, the Lions research building at Princess Alexandra Hospital, and the Queensland Eye Bank.

Stephen, following in his father’s footsteps, completed his training as an ophthalmologist in 1995. He did three years basic training in Queensland and two year-long fellowships in the United Kingdom. Upon graduation, he joined his father at Ohlrich Eye Centre, and together they built the practice into a community-oriented centre renowned for excellent patient care.

Both John and Stephen also played a vital role in the public hospital system. They worked at the Princess Alexandra Hospital for a combined 49 years (John from 1969-2000, Stephen from 1986-2018), caring for the eye health of thousands of patients and participating in the training of all the ophthalmology registrars of the day.

Stephen was also part of the Queensland Qualification and Education Committee for 10 years.

“During that time, I was the chairman for six years serving on the Federal Qualification and Education Committee. That’s when I started the Friday afternoon teaching sessions, which were done at the Princess Alexandra Hospital – attended by all the registrars from the Queensland training program,” he says.

“Subsequent to that, I was a RANZCO examiner for the clinical examination (RACE) for 10 years. Every registrar who has completed their training since 1969 in Brisbane has, at some stage, been supervised by Dad or me.”

In 2004, John passed away, leaving the practice and all its patients in Stephen’s care. Some of these patients had been treated at Ohlrich Eye Centre for more than 30 years, with a variety of chronic eye conditions, requiring careful management. Stephen continued to care for these people, and further grew the client base with cataract and macular degeneration patients. To this day, Stephen continues to run the clinic as a comprehensive ophthalmology practice with a subspecialty in oculoplastic surgery. He commonly performs tumour reconstructive surgery of the periorbital region.

As advances in technology have allowed optometrists to diagnose and treat more than they used to, the tendency is for patients to be referred on to subspecialty ophthalmologists. Stephen, however, continued practising as a comprehensive ophthalmologist because, being a RANZCO examiner, he was required to have proficiency across all areas of ophthalmology.

He further reflected that “cataract surgery has become a very common operation that we do much earlier” with patients expecting “excellent surgical results and spectacle independence.”

However, he says the biggest change during his career has been the improved treatment for macular degeneration. When he first started, after a patient got neovascular age-related macular degeneration and lost central vision, no more could be done.

“Now, with regular intravitreal injections to slow the progress of the disease, patients keep coming back through the door, so you get to know them quite well,” he says.

Over the years, Stephen has kept the practice’s equipment up-to-date with every new technological advancement in the field. The state-of-the-art machines at the practice are a far cry from the original field machine with all its patient data saved on floppy disks.

“The first thing I did was install a visual field machine, which was hardly avant-garde,” Stephen remembers fondly.

Now, Stephen is looking to retire, and hopes to see the Ohlrich Eye Centre passed on to another ophthalmologist with a focus on comprehensive eyecare.

“It’s a solo practice, but could possibly have two ophthalmologists here. I think young fellows by-and-large want to be subspecialists, but if there is an ophthalmologist out there who wants to use their comprehensive ophthalmology skills in an inner city setting, they would need a head start, and I think this would be the ideal base for them.”

It’s more than a practice up for sale; it’s a piece of ophthalmic history and the opportunity to continue a well-established legacy.

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