Personal Profile
Mrs Tracey Shipman is currently the Orthoptic and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Clinical Lead at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and has over 30 years of clinical experience. Orthoptics is the investigation and management of binocular vision disorders that occur at any age. In childhood, the main clinical speciality is visual development from infancy, through the critical visual development period, until visually mature. Early treatment of squint and lazy eye is paramount for a good visual outcome in adult life. Acquired binocular vision problems can occur at any age and often result in double vision, visual perception defects, reading and close work difficulties and eye movement abnormality causing a large variety of symptoms, many of which are amenable to orthoptic treatment. For the last 15 years Mrs Shipman has become highly specialised in visual disorders resulting from acquired brain injury and neurological disorders in both adults and children. They have been the lead for the clinical advisory group for the British and Irish Orthoptic Society and are still a member of this committee. Regular training and updates are required to fulfil this role and this person maintains mandatory training requirements. This role also involves teaching of less experienced and junior staff, as well as other health care professionals to Masters level on a regular basis. Mrs Shipman has many publications in various peer reviewed journals, including those published in Ophthalmology, stroke, brain, neuro-ophthalmology and visual impairment journals. Mrs Shipman is also a peer reviewer for the Cochrane Library (a collection of high quality independent advice for healthcare decision making)
Clinical Interests
- Visual development; treatment of amblyopia and lazy eye in childhood.
- Orthoptic treatment to improve binocular vision; assessment and management of double vision and eye movement disorders and visual disturbances.
- Assessment and treatment of reading difficulties.
- Assessment and treatment of visual problems resulting from stroke and other neurological disorders including brain injury.
- Assessment of neurological visual field defects.
Professional Memberships
- British and Irish Orthoptic Society
- Health Professions Council
