ASCRS News: ASCRS Annual Meeting preview
April 2023
EyeWorld: What have you gained from your experience being so involved with ASCRS?
Dr. Rhee: I am extraordinarily grateful to ASCRS on a number of levels. From a clinical sense, the field has changed over the last 2.5 decades since I was in my glaucoma fellowship and residency. Our techniques have gotten better, and we’ve introduced a lot of new instrumentation, both in cataract and glaucoma. I learned all the new and advanced techniques through my involvement in ASCRS. It has made me a better surgeon and allowed me to take care of my patients better and offer them more options.
I’ve also met people through ASCRS who have socially and academically enriched me, fostering collaboration on the scientific and educational front that I wouldn’t have necessarily been involved with otherwise. It was also the Society that allowed me the opportunities to speak, which were vital to my educational career.
Furthermore, it gave me leadership opportunities. Even when I was a committee member, I had the opportunity to create and lead educational activities. These allowed me to further progress to other leadership roles within the Society, and it was incredibly helpful to my development as an educational leader. There are tremendous role models within ASCRS for me to look up to and do my best to emulate clinically, educationally, and from a leadership perspective.
I’m very dedicated to ASCRS because of what it has given to me over the years. Whatever level of service that I have provided to ASCRS, not just as president but throughout my career, pales in comparison to what I have been given and have been able to offer to my patients.
EyeWorld: What do you think have been among the biggest accomplishments of the Society this year?
Dr. Rhee: It might have slipped under the radar for some, but I think the most prominent thing that happened during my tenure as president, which began under my predecessor, Richard Hoffman, MD, was the passage of the new bylaws at the 2022 ASCRS Annual Meeting. The executive leadership of ASCRS has been moving toward updating these bylaws for the last couple of years. The important part of this update involved term limits and the creation of the Nominating Committee, and open calls to the membership for involvement, all in response to the membership’s feedback over many years. This Society is much more inclusive, and that is now codified in the bylaws. The updating and passage of these bylaws was a major inflection point for the Society.
In addition, there is the success of the Government Relations Department and the grassroots efforts of physicians in overturning the prior authorization put in place for cataract surgery by Aetna. This problematic policy was established by Aetna in July 2021, and after a yearlong effort by ASCRS and others, it was rescinded in July 2022.
I think ASCRS has continued to be part of the post-pandemic recovery for the ophthalmic community. It doesn’t matter what practice setting you’re in, 2022 has been one of the most challenging economic times in the history of modern medicine, combined with the challenges the great resignation thrust upon us. In the face of that, ASCRS has always been the pioneer in education and educational formats. In 2020, we were the first major ophthalmic society meeting to be virtual. In 2021, we were the first major society meeting to be in person again. In 2022, even in the face of the most challenging year in medicine, we had a very successful meeting. That helped our ophthalmologists and ASOA members live and create the new normal. There is wonderful educational content throughout the lecture halls, the symposia, the courses, but it’s all those interactions that you cannot script, that you do not plan for, that do not naturally occur in a virtual environment but do occur in person in the hallway. There is that informal interaction between the speakers and the learners that cannot be replicated virtually, and that is invaluable to education, skills transfer, and professional comradery.
EyeWorld: Looking forward, what do you envision will be the role of the Society for anterior segment surgeons?
Dr. Rhee: The president’s role in our Society allows us to have some organizational memory and long-term planning beyond just 1 year. One of the significant advantages of that model is certain things came to fruition and certain things didn’t during my presidency, but the work in order to bring these new initiatives forward continues. It started before the year of my presidency, and it will continue afterward.
What are some of those? We are continuing to solicit and listen to the feedback from our members, and we’re actively working on building the new normal. I don’t think we will ever go back to a world that looks exactly like February 2020. The way that people want to acquire knowledge and what value they find in a society membership continues to evolve. In response to feedback and using the backbone of our Society, we are continuously innovating to provide the content that every ophthalmologist and ophthalmic administrator needs to most effectively care for the patients that we are privileged to serve. Some of those are too early for us to discuss at this time, but they’re going to be very exciting. The executive leadership of ASCRS is not just looking at strategic development on how to deliver educational content to our members in a 6- to 12-month timeframe. We plan for education in the immediate docket, but we’re also planning for how we think all of us would like to receive education in 3, 5, or 7 years.
EyeWorld: Finally, is there anything that you’re excited about specifically for the 2023 ASCRS Annual Meeting?
Dr. Rhee: I’m extremely excited about the meeting in San Diego, California. It will be reengineered; the Program Committee has made a great effort to deliver the same or more educational content in the most efficient and effective manner given that the meeting is shortened by a day. We continue to deliver information and techniques that you can use the day after you return from the meeting. I’m particularly partial to Glaucoma Day, as a glaucoma specialist, however, I’ve seen the programs for Refractive Day, Cornea Day, and other main programming sessions, and I can’t wait to learn the newest techniques to hone my surgical and diagnostic skills to take even better care of my patients as a result of the education I receive.
About the physician
Douglas Rhee, MD
Professor and Chair
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio
