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From the WGA Executive Office
Dear IGR readers,
We hope that this issue of IGR finds all of you, your families, and your staff staying healthy and safe during this COVID-19 pandemic. These past several months have been a very difficult and challenging period for all the world. The leadership of the World Glaucoma Association has been closely monitoring the spread of the virus and its impact on our members. The WGA administrative team consisting of Irene Koomans (Executive General Manager) and Marije de Graaf (Operations Manager) have remained working full-time to serve our membership. We are committed to providing you resources related to the COVID-19 epidemic as well as educational materials to keep you up-to-date on the latest in glaucoma diagnosis and management.
We encourage you to utilize extra free time from the quarantine to access these valuable sources of information via your WGA#One Dashboard and our social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We recently created a video for WGA members composed of messages from our WGA leadership ‒ distributed via our social media channels and on our website ‒ giving recommendations addressing issues ranging from patient care to self-care during these tough times. This effort was coordinated by Dr. Ziad Khoueir (Member, Associate Advisory Board of the WGA) and Dr. Pradeep Ramulu (Chair, Education Committee of the WGA).
Furthermore, we continue to provide new educational resources for our members including the latest video presentations of the Journal of Glaucoma Paper of the Month. In the March 2020 edition, we featured Dr. Kaweh Mansouri who reported the results of his recent publication on the impact of cataract surgery combined with XEN gel stent implantation on corneal endothelial cell density (two-year results) (J Glaucoma. 2020;29(3):155-160. doi: 10.1097/IJG.0000000000001430.). WGA members can also access the hundreds of recorded talks from 64 sessions at the recent World Glaucoma Congress meeting in Melbourne (2019). The sessions include diagnostic and therapeutic symposia and courses; basic science symposia; industry-focused breakfast symposia; and member society symposia from all major continents around the world. In addition, presentations from prior WGC symposia can be accessed from the WGA#One website.
We also welcome you to brush up on your glaucoma knowledge with our Basic Course in Glaucoma and the Continued Education in Glaucoma modules, developed by world renowned experts. The Basic Course in Glaucoma is available to take in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese. The modules in Continued Education in Glaucoma are for now only available in English. Our current modules include Ocular Hypertension (Kay Lam and Ivan Goldberg), OCT in Glaucoma (Gus de Moraes, Harsha Rao, and Don Hood), Tips to Maximize Adherence (Parul Ichhpujani), How to Approach the Failed Bleb (C Henein, Y Bouremel, and PT Khaw), and Managing Complications of Post-surgical Hypotony (Ricardo Abe and Vital Costa).
We invite you to keep up with the very latest publications in glaucoma during the COVID-19 epidemic, as WGA members have access to the Journal of Glaucoma (official publication for the WGA) as well as the International Glaucoma Review online. In addition, the detailed outlines for the WGA Consensus meetings are accessible at the WGA#One website. The latest Consensus meeting took place in conjunction with the WGC 2019 in Melbourne with the focus being on Glaucoma Surgery. Covered topics included laser trabeculoplasty, minimally invasive glaucoma surgeries (MIGS), filtering surgery complications, and cyclodestructive procedures.
We sincerely hope that all of you will be able to join us for the next World Glaucoma Congress meeting in 2021, to get the most up-to-date information on glaucoma care for your patients, and to catch up with your friends and colleagues around the world. The meeting was originally scheduled for March 24-27, 2021, to take place in Kyoto, Japan. However, due to concerns that COVID-19 may persist through the summer and re-emerge in another wave of infections in the winter of 2020-2021, we have postponed the meeting till the latter half of 2021. Our main concern is for the health and safety of our members. As a member of the WGA, you will receive an update with the specifics of the meeting in the near future. The Program Planning Committee, led by Drs. Tina Wong and Arthur Sit, have already laid the foundation for a wonderful program encompassing the latest developments in the diagnostics, management, and basic science of glaucoma care. Moreover, there will be special programs such as the popular Rapid Fire sessions to allow you to test your knowledge of glaucoma.
We thank you for your continued dedication to the care of your glaucoma patients as well as for your support of the World Glaucoma Association and the International Glaucoma Review. Please stay safe and healthy as we all adapt to these new challenges!
Get to know us
joined the Associate Advisory Board of WGA in 2007 as one of a band of young(ish) clinician scientists keen to get more involved in the organization and help it move forward into the future. I was appointed to the Executive Committee in 2009 as Treasurer and I was honoured to serve as President of WGA in 2019-2020. I was Professor and Head of Ophthalmology at the University of Cambridge until 2019 when I moved to Australia to become Director of the Centre for Eye Research Australia and Head of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne. My research is focused on understanding the mechanisms of retinal ganglion cell death in glaucoma and developing new treatment approaches to protect and regenerate the optic nerve. I have been involved in many WGA projects over the years, including helping to organize most of the World Glaucoma Congresses that have been held to date. It has been wonderful to see the WGA develop and grow over the years into an organization which I think now performs a vital function in our glaucoma community. I am proud that WGA has organized some of the best glaucoma meetings ever held worldwide, but also between congresses is delivering high quality education (including IGR and The Journal of Glaucoma) and innovative programs such as our WGA/ICO Glaucoma Fellowships for emerging leaders in our field from sub-Saharan Africa, to name just a few examples. WGA has helped me develop a network of friends and colleagues around the world that I hope will last a lifetime. I look forward to seeing the organization continue to thrive well into the future despite challenges present and future!
