News of the ICO, Ophthalmology and Vision:

Recent News

International ophthalmology news headlines:

• ICO WORLD focuses on education, advocacy and leadership
  
  
• ICO aspires to build World Alliance for Sight
  
  
• Leadership development in Sub-Saharan Africa
  
  
• ICO and American Academy collaborate
  
  
• New ICO Web site for improving residency training
  
  
• "Advocates" meet in Hong Kong
  
  
• Advocacy presentations and tips
  
  
• Council acts on future WOCs
  
  
• ICO adopts conflict of interest policy
  

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• the Latest News
• the most recent ICO Leader Letter
• Previous News)

ICO WORLD focuses on education, advocacy and leadership

About 150 leaders of ophthalmologic societies and teaching programs participated in the third ICO World Ophthalmology Roundtable on Leadership Development (WORLD), at the 2008 World Ophthalmology Congress in Hong Kong.

The Roundtable focused on:

• enhancing ophthalmic education
• improving advocacy for eye care
• developing ophthalmologic leaders and organizations.

For each area, there were brief presentations followed by discussion of initiatives around the world.

The ICO distributed USB drives to all WORLD participants (and IFOS Representatives) with a variety of resources for education, advocacy, leadership and organizational development. We will make these resources available on the ICO Web site in the future as part of plans to bring WORLD online.

ICO established the WORLD program early in 2007 to 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.

The first two WORLD Roundtables were in Lahore, Pakistan in February 2007, at the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology Congress, and in Dubai that March at the Congress of the Middle East African Council of Ophthalmology. Additional Roundtables will be organized at supranational society congresses in 2009.

ICO aspires to build a World Alliance for Sight

At the WORLD Roundtable in Hong Kong, ICO President Bruce Spivey, MD, outlined an organizational model that the ICO has defined in which it would create a "world alliance for sight."

In its recent strategic planning process, Dr. Spivey reported, the ICO recognized that, if it really aspires to improve access to eye care worldwide, enhancing residency education and other educational programs is not enough. Ophthalmology must also advocate for increased support for eye care and help build greater capacity, particularly in developing countries, he said.

And the ICO cannot do that by itself. Instead, it must work with and through other ophthalmologic organizations and educational institutions, Dr. Spivey said. And helping those organizations develop effective leadership and organizations will be critical to success.

With that perspective, he reported, the ICO evaluated various possible organizational models and decided it should act as a facilitator, leader, innovator, convener, stimulator and supporter of interested ophthalmologic societies and educational institutions, particularly in developing areas. As a result, in addition to developing its own programs, the ICO will focus on:

• educating educators
• training and supporting advocates
• helping leaders and organizations develop.

ICO success will be measured, Dr. Spivey said, by the extent to which ophthalmologic leaders develop effective societies and institutions that enhance education and improve eye care. And work together in a World Alliance for Sight.

Leadership development in Sub-Saharan Africa

At the WORLD meeting in Hong Kong, ICO Executive Director Bill Felch reported on a leadership development initiative that evolved from the WORLD program and fits well in the future model for the ICO described above.

In March 2007, the ICO and Middle East African Council of Ophthalmology (MEACO) formed the ICO/MEACO Advisory Leadership Group for Sub-Saharan Africa, with 21 ophthalmologists invited from 11 countries to the MEACO Congress in Dubai.

Subsequent meetings of the Advisory Leadership Group in Nairobi in October 2007, South Africa in March 2008 and Lagos in October 2008 featured half- or full-day workshops on facilitating meetings, national advocacy, training trainers and the realities of leadership in Africa.

Now with 39 members from 18 countries, the Group will meet at again at the MEACO Congress in Bahrain, with workshops on ophthalmologic society development, time management, operational research and the use of information technology.

ICO and American Academy collaborate on education

American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Executive Vice President H. Dunbar Hoskins, Jr., MD, reported at the WORLD meeting in Hong Kong on collaboration between the Academy and ICO on enhancing ophthalmic education in developing countries.

The AAO and ICO worked together to make the Academy’s Ophthalmic News and Education (O.N.E.) Network available to ophthalmologists in developing countries at no cost, starting in January 2009. O.N.E. is a Web-based education and information resource for ophthalmologists, with a wide range of clinical content and educational tools (one.aao.org).

The Academy and ICO formed an International Advisory Panel to provide advice on adapting ONE for use around the world, and Dr. Hoskins reported on feedback received from the Panel so far.

Earlier in 2008, the Academy and ICO worked together to send the 2008 edition of the Academy's Basic and Clinical Science Course (BCSC) to 200 ophthalmology residency training programs in 61 developing countries, at no cost to the programs.

New ICO Web site for improving residency training

Also at the WORLD meeting, Eduardo Mayorga, MD, announced the ICO's new World Ophthalmology Residency Development (WORD) program, an online resource center and forum dedicated to enhancing residency training in ophthalmology.

WORD evolved from the ICO Courses for Residency Programs Directors that have been organized around the world. Developed by Dr. Mayorga, MD, and Gabriela Palis, MD, WORD provides a place where program directors and others involved with residency training can "meet" and work together.

It focuses on:

1. What To Teach, including the ICO curriculum for residency training and other curricula, goals and objectives that have been developed in other regions.
   
   
2. How To Teach, including techniques that are covered in the Program Directors Course, tools for creating educational content and guidelines for lectures, case presentations, wet labs, quizzes, etc.
   
   
3. What to Teach With, including Web sites, lectures, videos, and other materials that are useful for teaching residents.

WORD is currently available in English and Spanish, and there is a monthly e-mail newsletter that highlights resources for teaching residents. Among the goals of the program are sharing existing educational materials and stimulating and supporting the development of new materials where needed.

You can visit WORD at www.icoword.org. To participate, you will need to apply for access and obtain a user name and password, but it is an easy process. Dr. Mayorga said that the success of the program will depend on the extent to which those involved in residency training are willing to participate.

"Advocates" meet in Hong Kong

Ophthalmologic societies can make a critical contribution to increasing support for eye care and prevention of visual loss, ICO Director for Advocacy Hugh Taylor, AC, told "Advocates" named by societies to work with the ICO at a luncheon in Hong Kong during the 2008 World Ophthalmology Congress.

Dr. Taylor and other international experts outlined the need for advocacy, what is already being done -- particularly the VISION 2020 global initiative --, and how societies and the Advocates they have named can help.

The ICO will ask Advocates (including those who were unable to attend) to work with their national VISION 2020 Committee or Prevention of Blindness Committee and National VISION 2020 Coordinator on specific initiatives. It will provide a variety of resources to help them advocate effectively.

Advocacy Presentations and Tips

The following presentations from the Advocates luncheon and WORLD Roundtable that followed can be downloaded from the ICO Web site:

• "The Need for Advocacy" (1.1 MB)
  Bruce E. Spivey, MD, ICO President
  
  
• "The Cost Utility of Eye Care and the ICO Advocacy Program" (3.2 MB)
  Hugh Taylor, AC, ICO Director for Advocacy
  
  
• "International Initiatives: IAPB, WHO and VISION 2020" (3 MB)
  Nag Rao, MD, President, International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness
  
  
• "National Advocacy: What Is Already Being Done and How Ophthalmology Can Be Most Effective" (1.5 MB)
  Abdulaziz AlRajhi, MD, Member, ICO Advocacy Committee and President, Middle East African Council of Ophthalmology (MEACO)
  
  
• "Coordination of Advocacy in Sub-Saharan Africa and Resources Available to Help Advocates Make Their Case" (5.0 MB)
  Daniel Etya’ale, MD, ICO Council Member and WHO VISION 2020 Coordinator for Africa.

Council acts on future WOCs

At its meeting prior in Hong Kong, the Council (now the Board of the ICO):

• Approved Abu Dhabi as the site of the 2012 World Ophthalmology Congress®, which will be hosted by the Middle East African Council of Ophthalmology (MEACO)
  
  
• Adopted a revised policy calling for rotation of future World Ophthalmology Congresses among four regions: the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East/Africa and the Americas
  
  
• Agreed the 2016 WOC will be in the Americas and 2018 in Europe, with proposals for sites to be considered by the Board six years ahead of time
  
  
• Elected David Taylor, FRCOphth, FRCPCH, DSc (Med), new Director of Assessments, taking over for Peter Watson, FRCS, FRCPCH, FRCOphth, who founded the Assessments in 1995.
  
  
• Discussed the plans of the ICO Task Force on Uncorrected Refractive Error, chaired by Babar Qureshi, BMBCh, DOMS, for addressing the needs of the 153 million persons worldwide with visual loss from uncorrected refractive error, including pilot projects in Pakistan and Uganda
  
  
• Agreed that the ICO should define a policy on the use of refractionists worldwide to meet public needs
  
  
• Reviewed consensus statements on screening for glaucoma submitted by the ICO’s Exploratory Task Force on Glaucoma, chaired by Ivan Goldberg, MBBS, FRANZCO, FRACS, and asked the Task Force to define what needs to be done to train the ophthalmologists and other personnel needed to manage and treat glaucoma in developing countries
  
  
• Recommended wide dissemination of a report from the ICO Standards Committee on "Assessment and Rehabilitation of Functional Vision," prepared by August Colenbrander, MD
  
  
• Reviewed a report on ethical considerations related to human research and agreed to ask ophthalmologic societies and training programs to incorporate those considerations into their research programs and disseminate them to others
  
  
• Agreed to ask the ICO Task Force on Medical Student Education to define the minimum eye care knowledge to be expected for physicians finishing medical school.

Council adopts conflict of interest policy

At its meeting in Hong Kong Council also:

• Adopted a Conflict of Interest Policy and had members of the Council and its Advisory Committee sign statements disclosing any potential conflicts
  
  
• Agreed to recommendation of the Advisory Committee to the Board, chaired by Dunbar Hoskins, MD, to create a consortium of societies interested in the development and dissemination of surgical simulation technologies
  
  
• Presented the G.O.H. Naumann Award for Leadership in Global Eye Care to BGK Ajayi of Nigeria and heard a presentation from Dr. Ajayi on The Nigerian Initiative.
  
  
• Named Bradley R. Straastma, MD, JD, an honorary life member of the ICO Board in recognition of his formation and leadership of the ICOFoundation. Hilel Lewis, MD, will take over as the President of the ICOFoundation in 2009 and Al Sommer, MD, will become Vice President.
  
  
• Discussed ways to streamline and facilitate the application process for ICO Fellowships, which will be considered by Director for Fellowships Peter Gabel, MD
  
  
• Heard reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) on progress with implementation of VISION 2020: The Right To Sight, the global initiative to eradicate avoidable blindness by 2020
  
  
• Approved revised Regulations for the Board, for the World Ophthalmology Congress and for ICO Awards that reflect the name change
  
  
• Reviewed reports and plans of other ICO committees and task forces and approved a $1.4 million budget for 2008 and 2009.

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