The Consultants at Sarum Vision have had a busy summer part of which has involved attending some conferences to keep up to date and share new developments in Ophthalmology. The conference season is drawing to a close but there were some fantastic events and we’d like to share some of the highlights with you.
106th Oxford Ophthalmological Congress
This is a fantastic general ophthalmology conference with delegates attending from all over the world. Both Mr Haq and Mr Wakefield attended this conference which is important in keeping up to date with non-subspecialist Ophthalmology. The keynote speaker was Professor Gullapalli N Rao from India who described setting up a comprehensive “system” for delivering Ophthalmology services in India. He was the founder of the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad and delivered a fascinating lecture on the challenges of setting up comprehensive eye services in a challenging landscape of extremely limited resources. Although a very different healthcare system, some of the principles also apply closer to home in NHS.
Other highlights included recognising myopia or short-sightedness as a disease and new treatments are emerging to potentially prevent myopia from developing. This has become an increasing problem in children with the advent of smartphones and screens which tend to increase myopia.
The conference did not entirely consist of lectures and it is also a fantastic opportunity to meet up with friends and ex-colleagues and exchange learning on challenging cases and effectiveness of new technology and advances in the real world.
British Oculoplastic Surgery Society Annual Meeting
Mr Haq attended this annual meeting which focus on his subspecialist area of interest – Oculoplastic, Lacrimal and Orbital surgery. Once again it was a fantastic meeting this year also held in Oxford. Delegates from all over the world attend this conference and the keynote speakers on this occasion were from Professor Dinesh Selva from Adelaide, Australia and Professor David Jordan from Ottawa, Canada.
Highlights included lectures on managing complex orbital cancers, advent of new immunotherapy for thyroid eye disease and assessing psychological aspects of aesthetic surgery. Professor Jordan delivered a fascinating talk on his long experience of using orbital implants which confirmed that despite various different types and surgical techniques having been developed over several decades, a simple acrylic sphere gives the best results. There were also very relevant discussions on dealing with complications of cosmetic procedures such as fillers and the unfortunately unregulated nature of a large portion of cosmetic practise.
It was also interesting to learn how different healthcare systems around the globe with varying patient demographics, utilise similar clinical approaches to UK practise. It was gratifying to learn that in Britain we remain at the vanguard of the field of Ophthalmology both in terms of research and clinical practise.