SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

Academy 2010 San Francisco is less than two weeks away. I sincerely hope you are going to be there. San Francisco is a terrific city, and Moscone Center West is a great venue for the meeting.

For the scientists that will attend the meeting, both the Scientific Program Committee, chaired by Ruth Manny, OD, PhD, FAAO, and the Research Committee, chaired by Lyndon Jones, PhD, FCOptom, FAAO, have worked tirelessly to provide a program rich in papers, posters, and symposia. Please don’t miss the AAO/ARVO Symposium: Normal and Abnormal Ocular and Visual Development, sponsored by the Vision Science Section, and the Monroe J. Hirsch Research Symposium: Ocular Genetics: From Laboratory to Clinical Practice and Back Again.

The Lectures and Workshops Committee, chaired by Tammy Than, MS, OD, FAAO, has worked diligently to provide you with a multitude of traditional CE lectures. Many of the lectures are being given by first time presenters, and there are more one-hour presentations available to give you ample opportunity to get education on a host of specialty interests. Handouts are already available on our Personal Program Planner.

You also don’t want to overlook the opportunities made available by our various section symposia:

• Management of Refractive Error in Children (Binocular Vision, Perception & Pediatric Optometry)
• Collagen Crosslinking and New Treatments for Keratoconus (Cornea, Contact Lenses & Refractive Technologies)
• The Lawrence G. Gray Neuro-ophthalmic Disorders (Disease)
• The Disease Section evening symposium
• Congenital Achromatopsias: Genetics, Psychophysical Testing, and Clinical Intervention (Low Vision)
• Scholarship: A Practical Guide to Enhance Faculty Success (Optometric Education)
• Primary Care Section/Ocular Nutrition Society Joint Symposium
• Vision 2020: Assessing the Past and Planning for the Future (Public Health & Environmental Optometry)

If you are a clinician, and if you haven’t taken the time to sit in on any of the scientific program offerings mentioned above, you are missing learning opportunities on new discoveries that may soon evolve into novel treatment modalities for your patients.

In addition, we are calling all private practice Fellows:
The Academy is moving forward with the formation of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and one such group needs your support and help. The “Fellows Doing Research” (FDR) SIG will be created at the upcoming Academy meeting. Barbara Caffery, OD, PhD, FAAO, is working towards identifying a group of private practitioners to perform clinical research in their practices. Fellows of the Academy represent the best in eye care and we believe that we are ideally suited to gathering data that will further the clinical understanding of common eye diseases.

Please join Fellows Doing Research (FDR) on Thursday November 18, 2010 from 3:30 to 4:30pm in the Intercontinental Ballroom B at the Intercontinental Hotel to review the organization and vision of this SIG, and to discuss some of the clinical questions that we are interested in researching. After the meeting, Fellows who are interested can sign up (we require 25 signatures) to be a part of this new innovative group.

Our ability as Fellows to improve the quality of eye care for all patients is underutilized. This group is being organized to fill a need in the eye care community. All Fellows who are interested in close observation, detailed grading and recording and the joys of doing meaningful research should join us for this discussion. We need energy, ideas and dedication. Come and bring a friend.

I’m excited about this year’s annual meeting and hope you are as well.

See you in San Francisco!
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