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ICO Notes
ICO General Assembly: Focus on Team Training and Diabetic Retinopathy

June 2012

Dear ICO Members and Friends,

It was a pleasure welcoming official Representatives and other leaders from ICO Member societies to the ICO General Assembly in Abu Dhabi during the 2012 World Ophthalmology Congress® (WOC). Our biennial meeting was a wonderful gathering, and it included status reports on the ICO’s many initiatives as well as stimulating discussions on Diabetic Retinopathy and Team Training.

Mark your calendars for the next ICO General Assembly, which will be held on April 2, in Tokyo, Japan during WOC2014.

1. General Assembly Reports

At the General Assembly, the voting representatives approved revisions in ICO Statutes and elected ICO Directors and Ordinary Members of the Board of Trustees, which I reported on in detail in last month’s ICO Notes. Following are a few of the report highlights presented by the ICO officers and program Directors:

• New Member Societies. In his report of the Secretary-General, Dr. Jean-Jacques De Laey noted new member societies approved by the ICO Board of Trustees, and I am pleased to welcome to the ICO the Argentinian Society of Ophthalmology, Mauritanian Society of Ophthalmology, Oman Ophthalmic Society, EuroLam Retina, and the European Pediatric Ophthalmological Society. 

• ICO Examinations. Dr. David Taylor shared the success of the ICO’s high-quality Exams, of which there are currently 120 coordinators in 70 countries.

• ICO International Fellowships. Dr. Peter Gabel described the ICO International Fellowships, including an increase to two-thirds of Fellowship recipients having passed the ICO Exams.

• Teaching the Teachers and Center for Ophthalmic Educators. Dr. Eduardo Mayorga gave a tour of the new Center for Ophthalmic Educators (educators.icoph.org) and announced that a Web-based teaching course and Webinar network that are in development.

• ICD-11 and Advocacy. Additional reporting included Dr. Satoshi Kashii presenting an overview of work related to the ICD-11 ophthalmology revision and Dr. Serge Resnikoff describing our efforts to enhance advocacy to increase support for eye care and prevention of visual loss.

If you would like to see the written reports of any of these groups, please let me know.

2. General Assembly Discussion Groups

Leaders of ICO Member societies, the Board of Trustees, and Advisory Committee members formed small groups to discuss the challenge of diabetic retinopathy and team training to meet the need for worldwide eye care.

Diabetic Retinopathy.  Discussion centered on how the ICO and national and international ophthalmologic societies can collaborate to meet the challenge of diabetic retinopathy.

We considered the following questions:

• How should training of ophthalmologists be changed to meet the public need for care of diabetic retinopathy?
• How should training of retina subspecialists be changed?
• What can ophthalmology do to support appropriate training and continuing education of others who care for diabetics?, and
• What can we do to inform the public about the need for screening and treatment?

To see a report summarizing the diabetic retinopathy discussion groups, go to: icoph.org/downloads/ICO-GA-Disc-DiabeticRetinopathy.pdf

Team Training.  We discussed how to train eye care teams to meet the projected need for eye care, particularly in developing countries.

The two big questions were:

• How should training of ophthalmologists be changed to support a focus on leading teams and meeting community needs?
• What should we do to support training of other members of the team, such as: ophthalmic assistants, technicians and technologists, nurses, orthoptists, and refractionists?

For a report on the team training discussion groups, go to: icoph.org/downloads/ICO-GA-Disc-TeamTraining.pdf

3. World Ophthalmology Roundtable November 10 in Chicago

The ICO's World Ophthalmology Roundtable on Leadership Development (WORLD) meetings bring leaders of ophthalmologic societies and educational institutions together to exchange information and ideas that will help them develop effective organizations and programs to enhance ophthalmic education and access to eye care.

At the 2011 WORLD at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Annual Meeting, we talked about:

• How will the practice of ophthalmology around the world change in the next 10 years?
• Are the ICO and supranational, national, and subspecialty societies doing all we should to help ophthalmologists prepare for the future?
• How will we deal with a dramatic increase in diabetic retinopathy? Is that our responsibility?

Save the date for this year’s WORLD, which will be held at noon on Saturday, November 10, 2012, during the AAO meeting in Chicago, Illinois. We will send you more details before then.

Finally, if you have comments about this year’s General Assembly or WOC and any suggestions for how things might be improved for WOC2014, please feel free to contact me at info@icoph.org.

With warm regards,

Bruce

Bruce Spivey, MD, MS, MEd
President, International Council of Ophthalmology

945 Green Street
San Francisco, CA, 94133, USA
Fax: (1-415) 409-8403
spivey@icoph.org
www.icoph.org