COLLABORATION OF OPTOMETRIC ORGANIZATIONS ON COMMERCIAL SUPPORT OF CONTINUING EDUCATION

It is wonderful to see the stakeholders of the optometric profession voluntarily come together to work towards a common cause. The latest endeavor involves the issue of corporate support for continuing education. Your Academy has for many years had conflict of interest policies that endeavor to flush out corporate bias from presentations.

Many of you probably know that the drug company trade group, PhRMA, has a revised code of standards starting this month. Specifically, the code will prohibit drug companies from giving out free pens, free dinners, etc., and will put significant restrictions on sponsoring CE. Not every company, however, will be bound by the PhRMA standards. Corporate-sponsored education events will continue, and those companies that are bound by PhRMA can continue to sponsor education as long as the company does not control the content.

Five optometric organizations are joining forces to address this issue. Recently a news release stated the purpose of the collaboration, and I thought you should be aware of the Academy’s involvement. The first meeting of the steering committee will occur later this month in Chicago, and once the policy is developed you will receive the details with further explanation as to how these new standards will affect our meetings in the future. Please see below for the full text of the news release.
_____________________________________________________________
Profession-Wide Optometric Organizations to Develop Guidelines for Commercial Support in Continuing Education
December 11, 2008 – To meet the rapidly changing needs of continuing education for practicing optometrists, five professional optometric organizations have initiated a steering committee to develop profession-wide guidelines for commercial support of continuing education. The American Academy of Optometry (AAO), the American Optometric Association (AOA), the Association of Regulatory Boards of Optometry (ARBO), the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) and the Southern Council of Optometrists (SECO) have issued a statement agreeing that they are “committed to ongoing excellence in optometric continuing education and ensuring high standards of accreditation. Therefore, we are dedicated to the development and adoption of guidelines for commercial support in optometric continuing education.”The pharmaceutical and medical device organizations have developed voluntary guidelines to ensure ethical interactions with health care professionals. Rather than one optometric organization developing similar guidelines for the optometric profession, the presidents of the five organizations formed a steering committee to oversee the development of optometric guidelines. Steering committee members will include representatives from the organizations and members of the ophthalmic industry. “Full input from the profession,” according to Dr. Christina Sorenson, President of ARBO, “will allow a collaborative effort that will benefit the profession greatly over the long term.”

VOLUNTEERS ARE THE HEART OF THE ACADEMY

 
The Academy is fortunate to have the devotion of so many volunteers. Orchestrating an annual meeting with the complexity of ours doesn’t just happen; it requires the guidance and energies of our wonderful staff, and the tireless efforts of all of our committees.

The volunteers make the Academy meetings successful. We see the fruits of the Admittance Committee’s labors when we welcome the new class of Fellows each year at the annual banquet. The Awards Program recognizes the outstanding contributions of the very best in optometry and reaffirms why our Academy exists. Many Chapters of the Academy work all year long to promote membership and attendance at the meeting to Fellows and non-Fellows. Our Communications Committee develops a fast paced press conference program each year that highlights for the press many of the outstanding discoveries unveiled at our meeting. Our Exhibits Committee assures that the exhibit hall gets bigger and better every year. The Lectures and Workshops Committee members you see at the education desk work tirelessly to make sure you have the best CE offerings and coordinate the hundreds of hours of lectures and workshops presented at each meeting. The Scientific Program Committee’s efforts bring us the latest and greatest new discoveries each year so we can all be on the leading edge of patient care. Our Research Committee develops one of the best symposia offered each year, and for those who attended the Hirsch Symposium this year, you know that the program on the bionic eye was intriguing.

My point to all of this is to let you know how many of your colleagues are involved with so much of what the Academy does. The activities I’ve listed above certainly are not the complete list of the Academy’s committees, and my apologies to those committees I haven’t named. All of us benefit from the combined efforts of all of our volunteers.

Yet the Academy faces a double-edged sword with respect to volunteers. We need many to make our programs successful, but making appointments to each committee every two years is difficult because we have many more individuals who would like to be involved than we have slots to fill. This is a nice problem to have, and I want to assure you that your Board is committed to involving as many people as we can. For that reason we only make appointments for two years at a time; so if you have served in the past and you were not reappointed for this term, it is because we face this dilemma. I wish to thank all who have agreed to serve during these next two years, and for all of those who have served in the past. You are the reason that the Academy is so unique, important, and special to us all.
[To Top]

KNOWLEDGE IS THE ENEMY OF DISEASE

 

The 86th annual meeting of the Academy has come and gone. If you missed Anaheim, you missed our largest and arguably one of our best meetings. We had over 4800 attendees living the Academy’s motto, “All CE, All the Time.” Certainly Rick Weisbarth concluded his term as President of the Academy on the highest note, and that happened in no small part because of his terrific leadership during these past two years. Congratulations from all of us go to Rick who can now enjoy the best office in any organization, Immediate Past-President.

Our Academy was founded in 1922, by insightful leaders who were not only dissatisfied with the commercial state of the profession at that time, but recognized that there was a need for a learned body to develop the science of optometry and to upgrade education. It was the extraordinary vision of the Academy forefathers who wanted to provide the profession with a scientific base. From those very beginnings, the Academy has been fortunate to be filled with talented individuals who have all been committed to the betterment of our profession and whose efforts have resulted in preservation of sight and protection of the visual welfare of the public. We are truly the only organization in optometry that has the unique ability to bring together the scientist and educators to present their outstanding discoveries, so they can be blended into the clinical care we provide our patients. It has been said by others that “knowledge is the enemy of disease,” and I am proud to be part of an organization that has provided the ammunition of knowledge in such abundant quantities to our profession. While we are all proud of our accomplishments, we cannot be content with what the Academy has done in the past. We must continue to raise the bar for the profession. Fortunately we have many wonderful individuals who share this vision as well.

It has also been stated that organizations like the Academy are generally easier to create than they are to sustain. That we have sustained didn’t happen by accident, it happened because of the skill and dedicated leadership of those volunteers, Executive Councils, and Presidents over the past 86 years. I am humbled by the realization that the future of the Academy will be influenced by the decisions that my fellow Board members and I make going forward, and that it won’t be long before our actions become a part of the Academy’s history as well. My personal challenge is to try to make the right decisions as we continue the Academy’s journey toward our new history. My promise to you is that I will do everything within my power to sustain the great tradition of this organization. I am surrounded by an extremely talented Board, passionate volunteers, and dedicated Academy staff, and I thank them and you for the support and confidence I have received.

For a complete version of this address, please see Dr. Mark Eger’s guest editorial in the November OVS issue.

Today's Research, Tomorrow's Practice®:How Does the Future Affect Today?

Plans are well underway for Academy 2008 Anaheim! This year's meeting will take place Wednesday through Saturday, October 22-25, and promises to be another great meeting.

Our Plenary session will be held on Wednesday, October 22 and will feature Ed Barlow, a well known futurist. As you may know, Mr. Barlow helped shepherd the AOA through a multi-year project culminating in the report, Optometry 2020: the Future of the Profession. Opening this year's session, Mr. Barlow will look into his crystal ball to predict possible outcomes in the future of health and eye care. Many themes emerged from his work with the AOA, including generational changes, the importance of nanotechnology and other advances in science, and health care delivery.

For optometrists and other vision scientists, it is essential that work be done collaboratively in a context of evidence-based medicine. Kay Dickersin, PhD, will join us at the Plenary to share the results of the Cochrane Project (an international, not-for-profit organization that produces and disseminates systematic reviews of healthcare information and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies) and how practitioners can not only reap the benefits of research results, but also contribute to its data collection.

Next, Don Mutti, OD, PhD, FAAO, will use the myopia control literature as a specific example of how the Cochrane Project can help bring today's research to tomorrow's practice.

We hope that you will be able to attend for this year's Plenary for a glimpse into how the future affects our profession today!

As we look to the future - do you know a practitioner, vision scientist or colleague who would benefit from our community? Is there someone in your practice or on your faculty who would be a great Fellow? If so, let them know about the distinction that Academy membership will bring not only on a personal level, but also the tremendous network of support they will gain!
For more specific information about Academy Fellowship, interested colleagues can visit http://www.aaopt.org/becoming/efellowship/index.asp at the Academy's website. Included is more specific information on the point system, application process, and timetable for gaining Fellowship.

Be sure to mark your calendar for Academy 2008 Anaheim, October 22-25, 2008! Join us in experiencing the most cutting-edge optometric continuing education as we enjoy the fellowship in sunny California!

Hotel and meeting registration is now open. For more information, visit www.aaopt.org.
Stay tuned for additional details.

Sincerely,
Richard E. Weisbarth, OD, FAAO
President

Gearing up for Tampa! (And Updates from the Board)

Sooner than we know it, Academy 2007 Tampa will be here! As you have probably heard, this year's meeting has new dates: Wednesday through Saturday, October 24-27, yet promises to be the same great meeting you've come to expect from the Academy.
Before I tell you more about this year’s meeting, I wanted to share with you some updates from the Board of Directors.

About ten years ago, the Academy engaged in conversations with the American Optometric Association (AOA) regarding the feasibility of joining our annual meetings together into one. For reasons that were germane at that time, the venture never came to fruition. More recently, we revisited that concept. There have been many discussions in the past two years, and your Board has spent many hours of due diligence in an attempt to make the best decision for the Academy and our members.

There are many compelling arguments for co-locating the meetings of the two organizations, and the Board considered those positives at length. But after polling our own membership, just one-third felt it was a good idea. In addition, the Board heard many specific concerns raised about the importance of maintaining the Academy’s meeting as the premiere educational event in optometry. Members made it clear that the strength of the educational program, based on the unique integration of optometric research and practice, should be maintained in order to continue to meet the needs of our members and attendees. Many felt that the only way to do that was to retain an independent annual meeting separate from that of the AOA.

As a result, the Academy Board of Directors has come to a decision that a combined meeting with AOA is not in our organization’s best interest at this time.

I would also like to tell you about a new initiative that is exciting and will impact the future of our profession.. As you may have heard, a joint project team has been formed to look at what a board certification process for Doctors of Optometry would look like – IF one were to exist.

The joint project team evaluating this issue is made up of representatives from the Academy, ARBO, AOA, AOSA, ASCO, and NBEO. The project team members were selected by their respective organizations. Representing the Academy will be: Drs. Mary Jo Stiegemeier and Tom Lewis. The group has been charged with addressing the issue of continued and advanced competence in optometry via a voluntary board certification process. The ultimate goal of this project is to create a program that would be endorsed by optometric organizations and made available to optometrists who have a need to demonstrate continued and advanced clinical competence to the public, third party payers and government agencies. Further, the team will not produce an abstract concept, but rather an actual “product" that we can all look at, evaluate and discuss. The Academy, AOA, ARBO, NBEO, ASCO and AOSA chose to address board certification now because the profession has demonstrated a readiness to consider the issue in a comprehensive, inclusive manner. This readiness is evidenced by 10 of the 57 "preferred futures" of the Optometry 2020 Summits relating to competence and certification. Additionally, one of the outcomes of the recently held National Optometric Continuing Education Conference states, “there be renewed dialogue involving all stakeholders to reassess continued competence and board certification.” Finally, some optometric organizations have already created elements of board certification including educational tracts and testing for advanced competence in specialty areas. The project team anticipates the process will take up to 24 months. I look forward to hearing from our Academy representatives, and will communicate with you as their work progresses.

And now back to the Annual Meeting. With over 230 hours of lectures and workshops, 13 section symposia, hundreds of scientific papers and posters, and an outstanding Plenary program on “The Impact of the Aging Population on Eye Care,” Academy 2007 Tampa offers an unparalleled educational opportunity for ALL optometrists, vision scientists, new graduates, residents and optometry students. In addition, you will have the opportunity to visit an expanded exhibit hall with nearly 300 booths featuring the latest products, technology and equipment.

Please make sure to visit the different areas on the Academy's web site about Academy 2007 Tampa. You can already find information on traveling to Tampa, the hotels, the Section Symposia, and the Lectures and Workshops program. In addition, our Program Preview mailer is currently being printed and will mail in early May. Hotel and meeting registration open May 23. Watch your mailbox!

I look forward to seeing you in Tampa!

Rick Weisbarth, OD, FAAO
President

THE ACADEMY IN 2007 - A YEAR OF CHANGES

 

To quote the eminent philosopher Heraclitus: "Nothing endures but change."
With the new year, comes a lot of change for the Academy

The Academy gavel has changed hands from Dr. Joe Yager's to mine. I would like to thank Joe for his care in leading the Academy through two years of successful meetings in San Diego and Denver, and the implementation of many exciting new initiatives.

A major change is upon the Academy in terms of our Annual Meeting. Beginning with Academy 2007 Tampa, the dates AND days of the week of the Annual Meeting are changing. Please mark your calendar if you haven't done so already: Academy 2007 Tampa will take place Wednesday, October 24 – Saturday, October 27.
We look forward to one of our most successful meetings ever!

The submission windows for Academy education are also earlier.

• The Lectures, Workshops & Grand Rounds window is already open and closes February 20, 2007.
• The Scientific Program (Papers & Posters) window will be open May 1 – June 1, 2007.

Submission for both windows takes place completely online.
The Academy Volunteer Leadership is also changing. We are in the process of verifying new Committee and Section leadership. These will be announced in the near future.

If you have not yet paid your Academy annual dues, you can now do so ON LINE - Another change. Go to www.aaopt.org and follow the prompts. and please don't forget to make a contribution to our Foundation (AOF) while you are there.

I look forward to seeing the Academy change and grow during the year. Thank you for your continued support in this time of change!

Rick Weisbarth, OD, FAAO
President

[To Top]