Knowledge and professional activities

a t j r t p s h ( t Knowledge, at least in the field of health sciences, comes mainly from the scientific side, in other words, only wellconducted research can provide good evidence about what we should or should not be doing in the field of eye care. The scientific activity is concentrated, but not only restricted to academic centers. From my perspective, every health care professional should dedicate part of his professional career to learn, teach, and to plan and conduct some kind of research. It is the role of scientific journals, to receive, review, improve and publish the research activities performed by clinicians and academic centers that are expected to increase our knowledge. It is interesting to see that in neither the origin nor the dissemination process of the knowledge being generated in the field of eye care, there is a clear distinction about the professional activity of the persons involved. Does this make sense? In my mind, it is the only way to go. I can easily understand that there can be differences in the extent or the ‘‘depth’’ of the knowledge that one or other professionals may wish to obtain, and that this differences may vary, for the same kind of professionals, in the different fields. For instance, it is quite easy to understand that an optometrist involved in clinical activities with patients may wish to know in depth how to interpret a corneal topography in order to select the appropriate contact lens for a keratoconus case, and, on the other hand, that an ophthalmic nurse or ophthalmologist may be happy just knowing how to find the steep axis of the cornea in