One Sydney practice owner has spent decades helping to support the goals and vision of Australian athletes. Now he’s applying the same techniques to a growing list of myopes, with the help and coaching of a much bigger, national team.
For Pierre Elmurr, the journey into eyecare has never been linear. It has moved through orthoptics, academic research, sports science, ophthalmology, and small-business ownership – fields that might seem disparate at first glance, but which collectively underpin the philosophy and structure of his two-practice operation, Primary Eye Care.
Today, Elmurr is sole director of the service he founded in 2003. And as the industry sharpens its focus on the rising threat of childhood myopia, his unusual combination of skills has become one of his practice’s defining strengths.
All backed by the collaboration and business support he receives from the Eyecare Plus network, which he joined two years ago.
“I think it’s a fantastic organisation,” he says. “You’re interacting with independents who are highly motivated in patient care and who have that entrepreneurial spirit. When you put them all together, you learn so much.”
Crucially, he says, the network played a direct role in allowing him to become the sole director of the Primary Eye Care business as it exists today.
Access to member practices looking to retire, relocate, or amalgamate was his gateway to acquiring and integrating two Eyecare Plus locations in Sydney – first Burwood, then Gordon – into his growing clinical model.
“Without Eyecare Plus support, that wouldn’t have happened,” he says. “It all gelled, and I was able to bring it together in a very neat way.”
A different path
Elmurr’s path into the industry has been anything but neat or traditional.
It began with a degree in orthoptics from the University of Sydney, completed in 1992, and later added a master’s degree in sports science, graduating in 1995 after completing a thesis on the eye-movement patterns of table tennis players.
The study was fuelled by his love of sports, especially cricket and rugby league (the big Bulldogs fan would have loved to have been in Las Vegas for the opening round of the NRL).
Few optometry practice owners begin their careers studying how elite athletes track a moving ball at high velocity, but for Elmurr that crossover between vision and performance was the first spark that would shape decades of clinical thinking.
“I’ve always been interested in the role of vision in high-performance tasks,” he says, “and at university I had lecturers who encouraged me to do research in that area, then introduced me to the sports science department.”
Those academic interests led him into a decade-long stint supporting ophthalmic surgeons in cataract and refractive surgery – experience he calls essential to building the depth of his clinical judgement.
Even now, the influence of his early training is unmistakable.
“Everything was built on evidence-based medicine,” he says. “If I’m developing vision-training programs or giving advice on performance, I keep it as scientific as possible. That credibility carries over into everything we do at Primary Eye Care.”
His two Sydney clinics serve suburbs with large populations of families from Asian backgrounds – a group known for disproportionately high rates of myopia.
That has shaped much of the clinical response that comes from his 16 staff.
“My optometrists have a passion for orthokeratology, soft-lens options, atropine – so we provide a broad range of treatments for our young myopic group.”
The business model emphasises medical optometry, with on-site OCT, glaucoma co-management, and a strong referral network spanning GPs, endocrinologists, and ophthalmologists.
“We work very hard on that medical model,” he says. “The only time a patient needs to leave is if they need medical intervention. Otherwise, we provide holistic care under one roof.”
Sport meets myopia care
Elmurr’s background in sports and exercise science might seem worlds away from paediatric myopia, but in practice, he says the ideas are deeply aligned.
“It all works hand-in-hand,” he explains. “Whether I’m working with a myopic child or a recreational athlete, I’m asking the right questions and looking at the whole person – their work, hobbies, sport, and lifestyle.”
He sees a clear psychological parallel between helping an athlete gain a performance edge and helping a child and their parents commit to a long-term myopia-management plan.
“I choose my words carefully, and I’ve coined a phrase – I call myself a kind of visual psychologist,” he says. “There’s a lot of psychology involved. You’re here to enhance that athlete’s performance by 1%, and you’re also here to help a child get the best outcome and minimise the long-term impact of myopia. It’s about getting them to buy in.”
Elmurr says his years of experience working with young people have taught him that the success of a myopia-control program relies as much on behavioural guidance as clinical technique.
“With kids, you’ve got to get into their brain,” he says. “It takes a lot of positive reinforcement. You have to enjoy working with kids, and you need them to buy in – just like getting a sports team to perform well collectively.”
Parents, he says, must be equally invested.
“The parents have to be motivated,” he says. “They’re the ones who have to be there if a lens falls out or needs to be supervised. The education process is paramount.”
His orthoptic training helps too – giving him the ability to step into more complex cases when required and to mentor his optometrists in both clinical and communication strategies.
Eyecare Plus part of the team
His membership with Eyecare Plus began only two years ago, but its impact has been immediate and structural.
First, it was the doorway to the acquisitions that shaped the current two-clinic model.
“I spoke to management and said, ‘If there’s a practitioner looking to retire or amalgamate, I’d love the opportunity.’ That’s how both Burwood and Gordon came together.”
Second, the network provides ongoing commercial and professional advantages: benchmarking reports, conferences, shared ideas, and buyer-group pricing.
“I love getting the benchmarking results,” says Elmurr, who shares many of the competitive traits of his athletic patients and is keen to understand how he’s performing in comparison to others.
“Absolutely I’m competitive. I’m driven and very focused on exceptional customer service – and benchmarking helps keep that edge.
“The Eyecare Plus conferences let you learn from highly motivated practitioners, and the buying group opens up opportunities with suppliers. While maintaining my independence, I can take the parts that benefit my practice.”
Finally, he says the marketing support and access to suppliers with strong myopia-control portfolios add direct clinical value, especially as his practices continue expanding their paediatric services.
That’s why he’s confident in recommending Eyecare Plus to other independent practitioners.
“If you’re open-minded and you want to grow and learn, then it’s definitely worth joining,” he says. “There’s so much to gain from working with like-minded colleagues.”
For a practitioner whose career has been built on integration – of disciplines, ideas, and clinical models – it is perhaps fitting that collaboration remains central to the next stage of Primary Eye Care’s evolution.
