Bernie Ursell: A Passion for Eye Care Education

Bernie Ursell A Passion for Eye Care Education by Chow Ee-Tan

With an extensive career background in health and public relations, Bernie Ursell believes that her past experiences have ultimately led to her current role — and her calling — in the eye care industry.

Based in Surrey in the south of England, Ursell is the director of communications and public relations for Allergan Eye Care. In this international role, she supports many key countries and covers internal communications, in particular, crisis communications.

CAKE magazine caught up with the busy executive to get to know what it takes for women to thrive in the ophthalmology industry.

Looking Back at Nearly Two Decades of Experience

Ursell’s connection with the eye care industry can be traced back to 2002, when she joined Bausch & Lomb and sub-specialized in eye care communications.

“Prior to that, I worked in many therapeutic areas including cardiology, dermatology, oncology and even animal health,” said Ursell, who is married to consultant ophthalmologist Dr. Paul Ursell. “It was my husband’s boss who asked why I didn’t work in ophthalmology. He then facilitated the introduction to Bausch and Lomb and the rest, as they say, is history.”

At Bausch and Lomb, Ursell worked as a medical writer alongside the communications director — which introduced her to medical education, across the company’s whole cataract and refractive portfolio. She also worked at CIBA VISION for several years.

Ursell’s mother was a nurse, which resulted in an early interest in healthcare. At the same time, writing was always one of her passions. “I also loved writing, so my ambition was to be a medical journalist. I was advised by the National Council for the Training of Journalists to obtain some kind of health training, so I moved to London to train as a nurse,” she shared.

After that, Ursell continued to pursue her midwifery training at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, before coming across public relations (PR), which helped fulfill her passion for both writing and health education.

“As a stepping-stone into public relations, I worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative in the south of England, which provided valuable insight into the industry,” she added.

A Passion for Journalism and Healthcare

From sales, Ursell eventually moved on to her first PR job at an agency in London. She had experience dealing with over-the-counter eye care products but she mainly specialized in neurology and cardiology.

“My training as a nurse and midwife means that I have a good understanding of all the systems in the body and many disease areas, making my job significantly easier,” she said. “From public relations life, I moved to in-house roles and spent around five years working as a freelance medical writer and journalist.”

Ursell added that her experience as a freelance journalist has provided deeper understanding of what the media needs, what makes a great story, as well as its constraints. “Having a medical background helps with the technical and human aspects of my job. I spent 10 years as a healthcare professional and I can put myself “in the shoes” of our audience. I know very well what life is like in outpatients, in the wards and operation theatres,” she shared.

Finding a Sense of Belonging with the Right Company

Eye care has always been — and remains — a key part of Allergan’s business. Over the last 70 years, the company has launched 125 eye care products and invested a huge amount of resources in new treatments for prevalent eye conditions, including glaucoma, ocular surface disease and retinal diseases, such as diabetic macular edema and retinal vein occlusion.

From the very beginning, Allergan has worked in close partnership with ophthalmologists. The company’s first ophthalmic product — an antihistamine eye drop to treat allergic conjunctivitis — was first produced as a nose drop, but following the advice of an ophthalmologist, it was reformulated to become an eye drop and became the first product to treat the condition. Ursell is proud to work for a company

that also supports patient advocacy groups and where possible, involves them in the company’s educational activities.

“Our focus is very much on healthcare professionals as we deal in prescriptiononly products, which means we don’t engage directly with patients,” explained Ursell. To her, Allergan has made an important impact on ophthalmology, including education.

“It is good to belong to a company that understands the business and ophthalmologists’ needs and constraints,” said Ursell. Working for a company that focuses on medical education — with content that is developed by doctors, for doctors — is another big plus for me. “Taking this approach, our education is about stimulating debate and discussion in a way that resonates and matters to ophthalmologists.”

Ursell also pointed out that in 2018, the U.K. Royal College of Ophthalmologists conducted a census to identify gaps in the recruitment of ophthalmologists and workforce planning, amid a predicted 40% increase in demand over the next 20 years.

“The results clearly showed that workforce capacity is a critical issue in the U.K.,” she said. “The report highlighted the assumption that ophthalmology is mainly cataracts and minor conditions. However, most ophthalmic patients have chronic lifelong diseases such as glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.”

Hospital Samarjhola, Odisha, which was set up to provide qualitative and affordable eye care to the needy population of the Ganjam District and its surrounding areas.”

At the Forefront of Programs with Social Impact

Ursell also leads Allergan’s social impact program: Keep Sight, a multiyear initiative to tackle avoidable blindness from glaucoma in underserved populations. The initiative believes that ensuring screening, early diagnosis, and appropriate treatment is essential to help prevent vision loss.

“In countries where resources, training or healthcare infrastructures are lacking, healthcare professionals struggle to help those most at risk,” shared Ursell. “Through our global Initiative, and in partnership with Sightsavers and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), healthcare professionals in low-and middleincome countries will receive essential training to screen, diagnose and deliver specialist care to help prevent glaucoma-related vision loss in high-risk populations,” she added.

Allergan has two pilot programs underway in Nigeria and India. Sightsavers leads and implements the programs and works with local healthcare systems to strengthen them, as opposed to setting up parallel programs. Both programs are underway and making an impact with Sightsavers ophthalmologists. These pilot programs will eventually become blueprints for other countries.

Ursell attended one of these community camps in a very remote and poor part of India, which proved to be a humbling experience for her. “Sightsavers has partnered with the Sankara Eye

A Partnership in Life and Profession

Ursell feels that being married to an ophthalmologist has been “extremely useful” to her career. “Not least because my husband provides tremendous technical support, but also because through him, I have “lived through” all the training, studying and applying for jobs. So, I have a pretty good understanding of the life and trials of an ophthalmologist,” she mused.

“We hang out with a lot of ophthalmologists, so I get to regularly hear about the incredible impact of their work on their patients’ lives,” she added.

“I also get to hear what they really think about the important issues happening in the world of ophthalmology. All of which helps me with my job to ensure that we truly meet their needs,” she concluded.

Contributor

Bernie Ursell is the director for communications & public relations, Eye Care, at Allergan.

Based in Surrey, United Kingdom, she has more than 20 years of experience in medical communications both in the U.K. and internationally. Armed with nursing and midwifery distinctions from St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, Ursell began her career as a pharmaceutical sales representative. For more than a decade, she took on different roles — from account executive to account director and communications manager to communications consultant in several international agencies and eye care companies. Ursell was communications manager at Bausch & Lomb for six years, communications consultant at CIBA Vision for three years, and senior communications consultant at MSL Group for two years, where she executed medical writing for major pharmaceutical brands. In May 2015, she joined Allergan as corporate affairs & PR manager, and took on the role of eyecare lead before assuming her current post in October 2018.