PAAO President’s Message

The Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology takes its primary mission – Education – incredibly seriously. We are continuously updating topics related to our specialty, trying to cover all subspecialities areas, offering fresh, new, and important information to our members and constituents.

The PAAO Hub of Science is a great resource ensuring you, your faculty, your residents, and students stay at the forefront of ophthalmological advancements. Hub content includes synchronous and asynchronous courses, webinars, Pan-American Journal of Ophthalmology (PAJO) content, grand rounds from top universities around the world and more, https://paao.org/pahs/

One great example of exclusive didactic material was the first webinar of the Global Health Ophthalmology series titled “Ophthalmology in a global vision: With the focus on the Amazon” coordinated by Prof. Rubens Belfort Jr. with the participation of Prof. Solange Salomão (Professor of Ophthalmology at Federal University of São Paulo), Dr. Jacob Cohen (Professor at Federal University of Amazon), Dr. Marcelo Siqueira and Dr. Christina Ferreira (Professors at Federal University of Roraima) and Prof. Mauro S. Campos (Professor of Ophthalmology at Federal University of São Paulo). This webinar provided a deep dive into the ocular health and social problems of the local people who live in remote areas without access to routine examinations, deprived of basic health care and many other social needs.

Speakers shared data showing the relevance of simple refractive errors corrected with eyeglasses and how this simple, nevertheless important, action impacts the whole community.

During the webinar, speakers also shared the fantastic humanitarian service provided by groups of dedicated professionals, bringing their knowledge, expertise, and training to the natives. It is almost impossible not to get emotional with the service provided to the Yanomamis, a group of indigenous tribes living in remote areas of the Amazon.

We also thank Dr. Helena Filipe Prior, our vice-president and co-chair of Campus PAAO, and Dr. Eduardo Viteri, director of the eLearning programs, for their hard work in putting together such a vast amount of scientific information, so we can provide the best in education to our membership and community.

Sincerely,

Paulo E.C. Dantas, MD PhD
PAAO President, 2022-2025
Editor-in-Chief, The Pan-American Journal of Ophthalmology (thepajo.org)