Eyeworld

SPRING 2024 | EYEWORLD | 47 Refractive Day This year's Refractive Day will focus on under- standing the patient's lifelong refractive journey. Program chairs Daniel Chang, MD, Cathleen McCabe, MD, and Vance Thompson, MD, have likened this journey to a triathlon, where sur- geons must prepare for the different stages of refractive surgery. "For me, one of the things I value the most in refractive surgery is approaching it in a com- prehensive way," Dr. Thompson said. "I'm particularly excited about this year because I think it's the way we should really be thinking about our patients and their journey throughout their entire eye health history in many different aspects," Dr. McCabe said. The idea, Dr. Chang said, is that vision correction needs progress throughout life, and as we're planning any particular procedure, we should balance what is needed for that treat- ment while thinking about the bigger picture. "We should consider how the past affects the present, and how the present may affect the future." Refractive Day this year is going to focus on patients' lifetime refractive journey from corneal refractive surgery and phakic IOLs to presbyopia treatments to refractive cataract surgery. When they're a younger patient, Dr. McCabe said, they may want to become independent of their glasses and contact lenses and opt for things like LASIK or PRK or SMILE, or they may benefit from phakic IOL. Presbyopia will eventually affect everybody, and that will take patients into a new phase where they're trying to regain some near vision, and there are different choices to elect—monovision or presbyopia-mitigating drops or maybe RLE. As time progresses, they'll develop a cataract and will be in a new phase of their refractive journey where we'll be talking about other issues and technologies, Dr. McCabe said. "We're going to link that together and get a bigger picture of how we think of a patient not as just a time point in their refractive journey but across their entire life," she said. "We've likened that to a triathlon where each section or Contact Chang: dchang@empireeyeandlaser.com Farid: mfarid@hs.uci.edu Mah: Mah.Francis@scrippshealth.org McCabe: cmccabe13@hotmail.com Radcliffe: drradcliffe@gmail.com Thompson: vance.thompson@ vancethompsonvision.com Dr. Chang will serve as one of the co-chairs of this year's Refractive Day program. Source: ASCRS phase of the triathlon builds on and impacts the overall success of the event that the patient is having. Even when you're in the earlier phases of helping a patient, you should be thinking to- ward the future and the fact that they're going to have other evolutions that happen in their eye health and how what you're choosing today is going to impact their choices in the future." A highlight of Refractive Day will be the annual Steinert Lecture, delivered by an innova- tor in the field of refractive surgery. This year, it will be delivered by Stephen Slade, MD, a true pioneer in corneal refractive surgery. Dr. Slade will be speaking on "RLE: What Would Roger Do?" Refractive Day will feature a variety of presentation formats, including lectures, case presentations, and lively panel discussion. Audi- ence questions will be encouraged throughout. As a Subspecialty Day first, the final session of the day will feature the moderators from each session recapping the lifelong refractive journey and responding to audience questions collected from throughout the day. Refractive Day will also help set the stage for refractive symposia taking place throughout the ASCRS Annual Meeting.

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