J&J Vision (formerly AMO) has appointed Camille Furnandiz as a specialist sales representative for New Zealand, effectively doubling New Zealand’s on the ground surgical sales team.

The New Zealand market for J&J Vision has grown significantly in the last 12 months, says Helen Cameron, J&J Vision’s surgical sales manager ANZ, so the country needed additional support, especially in Wellington and the South Island. Appointing Furnandiz is an exciting step for the company as it demonstrates J&J’s commitment to New Zealand and especially, given Furnandiz’s background in general surgical, to New Zealand’s ophthalmologists and registrars, she says.

Furnandiz says she’s thrilled to be on the team and is loving learning about ophthalmology and especially cataract surgery. "I’m very excited about this role. Eyes is the most civilised procedure and cataracts just have such finesse.”

She’s particular excited to be working with the ophthalmology registrars, she says, which is something she also enjoyed in her past roles in general surgery. “I’m very passionate about educating the registrars, because they are the future, so anything we can do to help upskill and partner with them benefits all of us in the future.”

As well as sponsoring the annual NZORC (ophthalmic registrars conference), Furnandiz has put together a registrar training programme, which she’s run in Wellington and is planning on running in Christchurch and Dunedin next year. The programme covers wet labs, phaco and IOL education. J&J also runs a free toric training programme for registrars, towards the end of their training, which is popular in Australia, but is not well-known in New Zealand; something Furnandiz plans to change.

Prior to joining J&J, Furnandiz was surgical business development manager for Medtronic’s minimally invasive therapies group, a senior technical consultant with Coviden and a key account manager with EBOS Healthcare.

Furnandiz will be based in the capital, with responsibility for Wellington, the Hawke’s Bay, Palmerston North and the South Island, while Matthew Northage will continue to be based in Auckland, covering the rest of the North Island.