PAAO President’s Message
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must believe, and which we must act upon. There is no other route to success.”
~Pablo Picasso
Last Monday during our executive committee meeting of the PAAO, we had a lengthy discussion with the participation of Pablo Daponte in regards to the Pan-American Congress of Ophthalmology in Buenos Aires, Argentina (May 26-29, 2021). When the conference call was over, I could not help starting to think that we are planning for 2021! I then realized how active the PAAO is and how many great activities the society offers for its members. In regards to meetings, 2020, the “Ophthalmology year” will have a Pan-American course during SIMASP in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as, the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute PAAO regional course, November 22-25. Certainly, in all those meetings and in many others during 2020 that the PAAO and the PAAO members will be participating, new technology will be presented and discussed. There is no doubt that this will generate a great deal of enthusiasm in the Ophthalmological and PAAO community.
In all my activities, including being President of the PAAO, patients come first. I know that this is our mutual feeling and for Ophthalmologists at large, innovation is to benefit the patients.
By trying to connect our PAAO meetings, the need for innovation and the well-being for our patients, I believe that consideration should be given to how innovation can be immediately available to our patients. Ideally, the inevitable increase in the use of innovative technology will benefit a large number of patients despite their geographic, social and economic status.
Therefore, in our planning ahead and acting upon what has been planned, we should keep in mind that time should be allocated to discuss how the innovations can be available to all our patients. The PAAO is an ideal platform for those discussions to proceed due to the diversity of its membership and the different strategies that should be used depending on each PAAO country where the patient will be diagnosed and treated.
Our patients should be placed in the center of all the conferences planned and all advances in Ophthalmology should be readily available to them.
Miguel N Burnier Jr, MD, MSc, PhD, FRCSC
PAAO President