Purpose of ICO/IFOS?
What should be the main purpose of the ICO/IFOS? What is the ultimate outcome it should work to achieve (e.g., greater public access to eye care, enhanced ophthalmic education, stronger ophthalmologic societies, etc.)?
posted by Bruce Spivey at 12:38 PM
21 Comments:
Enhanced ophthalmic education.
31 May, 2006 06:57
The main purpose of the IFOS/ICO in my view is to be supporter of National Societies.
Primarily this means it must be able to provide a
supranational unbiased viewpoint on eye care and development which is available to individual societies who are approaching their governments
to improve the facilities to develop eye care and education in their own countries.
Therefore : there must be a preorganised response which can be delivered instantly on request with only slight modifiication for individual cases
each society must have an international committee which is able to communicate directly with IFOS / ICO.
Each society must have a plan of action for the future development of the speciality in their own country and should work out in advance of
any government approach how the ICO can help.
Approaches to education and testing of undergraduate, residents , and
specialists are someting that the ICO can readily provide, as there is not too much difference in individual states.
31 May, 2006 07:04
1. IFOS / ICO must be the liaison between all national
and supranational societies.
2. Education
31 May, 2006 07:09
The main purpose of the IFOS/ICO in my view is to create awarness for the eye diseases, especially for the preventable ones, amongst public and governments via National Societies.
01 June, 2006 04:14
Organize the International Scene : meetings, relations between the societies, diploma recognition, continuous education recognition, fellowships on Inetrnational level, International Ethics.
02 June, 2006 22:43
I think the ICO should focus on improving ophthalmic education predominantly and have some demonstrable model programmes across regions
03 June, 2006 00:25
enhanced ophthalmic education
03 June, 2006 00:32
(i) The main purpose of ICO/IFOS should be the enhancement of Ophthalmic education.
The ICO should focus on training.
This can be targeted to young and recently qualified doctors as well as to teachers us in under developing countries. We should try to create a directory for volunteers ready to teach at their own centres with no or little remuneration. At this point of time, asking them to spend time away from their own centres may not be a good idea as this would incur lot of economic burden to ICO. There are quite a few established and well tested training programmes already existing. In other words everything we can think, plan and implement related to the trainee should be the main focus.
(ii) It would be a good political move to get various ophthalmic societies with us and therefore, we should also include an objective of strengthening ophthalmological societies. To begin with we can identify the societies and the regions which needs our help more.
03 June, 2006 05:01
The main target should be enhancing Education and training. It can encourage more international collaboration.
03 June, 2006 12:08
Strenghthen Ophthalmic Societies and bring them to the ideal level of AAO.Help improve the educational value of their annual meetings.They should all look cloned.Work through them to improve the standard of Ophthalmic care and education in their countries
04 June, 2006 02:08
I fully support Peter Watson
04 June, 2006 10:46
I totally agree with Dr Peter Watson. In addition enhancement of international collaboratio.
The Eyepathology should be supported as it is a rare resource for our training programme.
05 June, 2006 17:02
I think the main role of ICO/IFOS, with its great depth of training experience, should be promotion of teaching programs, and provision of teaching resources.
It should not exclude itself from other activities such as advocacy, but training at all levels should be the core.
05 June, 2006 17:48
Certainly one purpose of the ICO/IFOS is to provide a cataloging of education resources and practice guidelines from around the world. With its representation it is uniquely positioned to gather information about education and practice guidelines from countries and regions and provide links and information about these resources to those who wish to access them.
A second major purpose is advocacy for ophthalmology and the patients we serve. It is critical to have government support for new teaching programs where needed.
A third purpose is to promote collegiality and interchange among the ophthalmologists of the world in order to raise standards and quality of care, using appropriate mechanisms such as the clinical exam and fellowship support.
Perhaps its most noble purpose is to enhance residency education in those countries desiring in order to have ophthalmic manpower required to meet the needs of the country.
06 June, 2006 14:46
The main purpose of the ICO/IFOS should be to inform the ophthalmologists about the real scientific evidences suggested by ophthalmological research. Also to suggest the real and effective therapeutic approaches in ophthalmology, distinguishing from the experimental ones and those still in course of study.
13 June, 2006 04:59
Purpose:
"... ensure permanent cooperation between
representative Ophthalmological Societes of
different countries... and the various
international bodies concerned with the
organization of educational, scientific and
cultural matters..."( Article 2 Statutes of IFOS ).
To reach this goal repeat encouragements to
a.) ELECT the IFOS-delegates by the full business
meeting of the individual societies ( not by
order of the Board).
b.) ASSURE that a Member of the ICO is present
and reports at the annual Board and Business meeting of the national and subspecialty societes
c.) PROMOTE, that an Officer of the ICO is present
at the Supranational Society meeting ( including
the Board meeting) and that he/she does not have
to pay registration fee.
d.) CONTINUE the ICO Leader letter and get at
the nerves of all ophthalmologist to take notice
of the < www.icoph.org>
e.) INVITE the regional IAPB representative to the
geographically corresponding Annual ICO Meeting
f.) Invite 10 colleagues younger than 40 years from the region of the annual ICO meeting to present 5 minutes each their aspirations and wishes to the Advisory Committee or even the full Council ( make them " Junior Advisor of the Year to the ICO", try to convince the Supranational Society to skip their registration fee)
14 June, 2006 15:02
The role for IFOS?
To strengthen the network of ophthalmologists around the globe, creating momentum and energy that recognizes and binds us together in the common pursuit of quality eye care to those who need it. No other organization has this mandate, and none would be able to acquire it, for all the obvious political reasons. This is a long term process, that will not be achieved in 5 or even 10 years, and even then will need to be ongoing.
14 June, 2006 15:10
I have no doubt in my mind that the main goal of the ICO should be education, training and advancement of ophthalmology in developing countries.
North America and European countries do not need the ICO help. The national and supranational societies of these continents and some other more developed countries, as well as the sub-specialty societies, should focus their efforts in helping the countries where ophthalmology is weak, hardly present or distributed unevenly, so most of their populations do not have access to opthalmic srvices at all or to ophthalmic sevices of a low level.
Of course it should be done in several levels, starting from "countries with minimal presence of ophthalmology" in which I'm involved, through countries with presence of ophthalmology but not enough of it or unorganized, to countries with reasonable organizations but with level that is not updated to the European/American level. The ICO authorities work on these goals, but should focus more, and take the lead, organizing all the organizations like IAPB, WHO, NGOs etc.
We should look for big funds to fulfil these goals.
14 June, 2006 15:15
I think the main purpose of the ICO/IFOS in the next five years should be enhanced ophthalmic education and focus on training in developing countries.
ICO/IFOS should promote good and well tested training programns to developing countries.
Perhaps some young ophthalmologist could do part of their training to become specialist in developing countries.
20 June, 2006 03:12
Primarily for my country (R.Macedonia )to be accepted and get supported by rich countries with better education and medical equipment.
27 June, 2006 09:28
I think the main purpose of ICO/IFOS should be to try and help all countries to achieve an acceptable minimal standard of global ophthalmic care. This can be done in various ways such as subsidising and helping to train ophthalmic personnel at all levels for the long-term future.
In the short-term ICO/IFOS should make the world aware of where the need is most acute so the immediate aid can be targeted most effectively.
29 June, 2006 14:18
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