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International Council of Ophthalmology

Building a World Alliance

for Sight

2009 Program Update

World Ophthalmology Congress (WOC) 2010

The next WOC will be June 5–9, 2010 in Berlin.

This 32nd International Congress of Ophthalmology

will be outstanding—featuring top world speakers,

exhibits of the newest ophthalmic drugs and

equipment, and ophthalmologists from countries

throughout the world. For more about the World

Ophthalmology

Congress 2010, see

www.woc2010.

org. We hope to see you in Berlin!

Refocusing Ophthalmic Education

This new ICO initiative

seeks to assist educational

leaders worldwide to

enhance educational

programs at all levels.

By incorporating modern

educational theory and effective methods of

teaching adults, the goal of this collaborative

effort is to improve ophthalmic education and,

ultimately, eye care.

For more, see: www.icoph.org/pdf/icorefocusing.pdf.

International Council of Ophthalmology | 2009 Program Update | page 1

Under supervision of Dr. Robert Ritch, ICO Fellow Dr. Nadezhda Gvozdyuk (Russia) trained in glaucoma.

Peking University Eli Lilly Diabetic Eye Disease Center at Peking University Eye Center, Beijing, China.

International Council of Ophthalmology | 2009 Program Update | page 2

ICO Training and Education Programs

Basic and Clinical Science Assessments: This year, 1,874 candidates enrolled for the Assessments exams at 96 test centers in 65 countries. The Assessments have been actively seeking new test centers in additional countries to broaden the reach of the program. www.icoph.org/assess

New in 2009, the ICO/Alcon Ophthalmology Subspecialty Fellowships complement the shorter ICO Fellowships by offering one year of training. The first Fellows will begin training at the University Eye Hospital, Ljubljana, Slovenia, this fall.

Beginning September 2009, The Helmerich Fellowships will provide advanced subspecialty training to ophthalmologists and help them transmit new knowledge upon return to their native countries. This program is sponsored by the Retina Research Foundation in cooperation with the ICOFoundation.

Now in Azerbaijani, Chinese, English, French and Spanish, the ICO Medical Student Handbook contains tables of core knowledge and key ophthalmic disorders. It is a practical tool to assist medical students, and is available on the ICO Web site: www.icoph.org/ed/icomed.

html#handbook.

Residency Program Directors Course in Beijing, China in May, 2009.

The ICO worked with local hosts to offer its popular Residency Program Directors Courses in China, Colombia and Indonesia in 2009, for 120 residency program directors. These courses focus on methods of instruction, skill assessment, measuring competence and resident behavior, and are sponsored by Allergan.

The ICO International Fellowship Program has now awarded more than 350 three-month Fellowships to ophthalmologists from developing countries. Capacity in 2009 increased to 60 Fellowships per year, up from 50. For the current directory of Fellowship opportunities, see www.icoph.org/fellow.

The ICO is supporting the development of Regional Ophthalmic Training Centers in Nigeria (Regional Catholic Mission Hospital network coordinated with University Eye Hospital, Ibadan and supported by the Lavelle Fund), China (Peking University Eli Lilly Diabetic Eye Disease Center), and Slovenia (Ophthalmology subspecialist training at University Eye Hospital, Ljubljana).

International Council of Ophthalmology | 2009 Program Update | page 3

ICO/MEACO Advisory Leadership Group for Sub-Saharan Africa in Bahrain, March 2009.

Collaboration

New ICO Clinical Guideline on HIV/AIDS in the Eye: This new Guideline, developed by the ICO Guidelines Committee, breaks ground as the first evidence-based clinical guideline published on HIV/AIDS in the eye. There are now 20 ICO International Clinical Guidelines, most of which are based on American Academy of Ophthalmology Benchmarks. See www.icoph.

org/guide for the complete list.

Free Access to AAO’s O.N.E. Network: The Ophthalmic News and Education Network (O.N.E.™), www.one.aao.org, is an educational online resource that combines clinical content, news and tools from a variety of sources. The ICO and the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) are working together to make the O.N.E. Network available free to ophthalmologists in developing countries. More than 6,000 ophthalmologists in 35 developing countries have been provided with access.

AAO’s Basic and Clinical Science Course—The ICO and AAO again collaborated to distribute copies of the AAO’s Basic and Clinical Science Course to 94 residency programs in the developing world. 2009 is the second year of this partnership.

The ICO/MEACO Advisory Leadership Group for Sub-Saharan Africa met for the fifth time for leadership training in March. The group is now operating independently as the Africa Ophthalmology Forum. They are establishing criteria for membership, the development of ophthalmologic societies, online communication and specific strategies to involve Francophone countries in Africa.

A new Curriculum For Ophthalmic Assistants was released in March to complement the previously published Principles and Guidelines of Curriculum for Para-ophthalmic Vision Specialist Education. The ICO International Task Force on Para-ophthalmic Vision Specialist Education and the Joint Commission on Allied Health Personnel in Ophthalmology (JCAHPO) jointly developed this new curriculum. It is available for download at www.icoph.org/pdf/ICOCurriculumOMA.pdf.

World Ophthalmology Residency Development (WORD), www.icoword.org, is an online forum and resource center to enhance residency education, with a monthly email newsletter that highlights resources for teaching residents.

Advocacy

The ICO Bahrain Declaration on Trachoma and Trichiasis Surgery was adopted by the ICO and endorsed by the International Association for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) Board of Trustees in April. This Declaration encourages ophthalmologists around the world to take the lead to ensure the quality of trichiasis surgery through appropriate training and supervision. See www.icoph.org/pdf/icotrichiasis.pdf.

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International Council of Ophthalmology

945 Green Street

San Francisco, CA 94133

United States

Fax: (415) 409-8403

Web: www.icoph.org

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International Council of Ophthalmology | 2009 Program Update | page 4

The ICO “Advocates” asked their Ministers of Health to support endorsement of the WHO Action Plan for the Prevention of Blindness at the WHA meeting in Geneva in May. The Plan was endorsed, thanks to a three-year effort led by Eastern Mediterranean region and others at the IAPB to increase support for prevention of visual loss around the world. The full text of the Action Plan is at www.icoph.org/pdf/WHOActionPlan.pdf.

Research

Clinical Research: A Primer for Ophthalmologists is a new tool to assist beginning ophthalmic researchers. Written by ICO Director for Research, Alfred Sommer, MD, this simple outline, or “primer,” provides guidance to the essential components of clinical research and may stimulate readers to seek more detailed, formal training. It is available for download at www.icoph.org/pdf/

ResearchPrimer.pdf.

Additional ICO Initiatives

Continuing Medical Education: The ICO CME Task Force is reaching out to ophthalmologic societies to help establish and promote the importance of formal CME programs. Early in 2009, the task force surveyed societies to learn about their CME needs and to recruited society representatives to work with the CME Task Force. A new Visiting Professor Program has visits scheduled for Algeria, Tanzania and Vietnam.

ICO Task Force on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) will give input to the WHO on the Burden of Vision Loss to understand the impact when setting health policy priorities.

The ICO Task Force on Uncorrected Refractive Error started two pilot projects in Pakistan and Uganda in collaboration with LIGHT FOR THE WORLD Austria. These projects feature the provision of affordable, sustainable refractive services to communities and human resource development.

In early 2009, the ICO Education committee announced two new Task Forces: Ophthalmic Subspecialty Education and Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning, which has a blog on E-Learning Tools and Techniques at www.icotechnology.blogspot.com. We look forward to reporting more on their progress.

About the ICO

The ICO is building a World

Alliance For Sight. We work with

ophthalmologic societies and others to

enhance ophthalmic education and

improve access to the highest quality

eye care in order to preserve and restore

vision for the people of the world. For

further information, please see the ICO

website: www.icoph.org.