Eyeworld

22 | EYEWORLD | APRIL 2020 COVID-19 NEWS YOU CAN USE EyeWorld reached out to members of the ASCRS Executive Committee for their thoughts amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Members of the Executive Committee come from different areas of the country and here provide their personal experiences with the crisis as well as messages of advice, hope, solidarity, and encouragement. ASCRS NEWS Thoughts from members of the ASCRS Executive Committee continued on page 24 Even in this terrible time that we're in right now, ASCRS is still pushing to fulfill our mis- sion to give education to surgeons. It may be in a different way because of the cancellation of the ASCRS Annul Meeting this year, but we still have a large amount of educational content that we're going to get out to surgeons. Another part of ASCRS is philanthropy. Through our ASCRS Foundation, ASCRS has continued to push philanthropic efforts and put resources behind these efforts. This includes things like Operation Sight and helping doc- tors who want to help the patients who don't have the resources necessary to get surgery. I think this has been a nice way for ASCRS to help because surgeons don't have to fly across the world; there are underserved areas in our own communities. The efforts of the Foun- dation, both international and domestic, allow surgeons to have the mechanisms in place and the resources to allow them to perform surgery on needy patients, sometimes within their own surgical centers and their own hospitals. In the past year, we've launched the ASCRS Research Council. It will be very important in the future because we want to put a mechanism in place that will allow us to do major studies in areas that need huge numbers of patients and a large amount of participating doctors. Our first initiative is the TIME (topical vs. intracameral moxifloxacin for endophthalmi- tis) study. This is a huge effort that has been spearheaded by Doug Rhee, MD, who is putting together a large multicenter study across the U.S. The problem is that in the U.S., there is no intracameral antibiotic approved for single use to prevent endophthalmitis, so a lot of U.S. surgeons are not using this. This study is going to be very large, around 75,000 patients, and It's difficult to talk about the accomplish- ments of the past year given the circumstanc- es of the pandemic and the extremely diffi- cult time people are going through now. It has affected everyone. It has affected all peo- ple everywhere in the world right now, so it's difficult to sit back and consider some of the good things that happened within the society over the last year. If we go back to a more positive time, that starts with the 2019 ASCRS Annual Meeting. I think that meeting a year ago was particularly exciting because we launched the new initiatives of the society. We had a new slogan at that point: "For surgeons. For you." It wasn't just a rebrand, but it reflects what ASCRS does. This brings us to the point that ASCRS is the society for all anterior segment surgeons, and that includes not only cataract and refrac- tive but also cornea and glaucoma surgeons. I think we made it clear exactly what the society represents and who we represent. Over the course of the year, we put for- ward what ASCRS is about. The first mission of ASCRS is education. ASCRS is where anterior segment surgeons of all kinds can get content regarding surgical techniques, complica- tions, new medications, and new IOLs. I think that education is a huge part of the mission. Over the course of the year, we have been presenting our educational content, especially online, with things like webinars and online content that members and even non-members can receive. Nick Mamalis, MD Outgoing President

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