AAO 2012 Phoenix – Day 2: A view into the future

Well day 2 has been even better than day 1 although it was another 4am start. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop, there are so many interesting lectures I’m having a hard time choosing.

I opted for “What’s new in retina” which was a good choice. The chap (a retinal surgeon) was giving us a sneak peak at some brand new (not even released or published) information about some very exciting new drugs available to treat macular degeneration. You may have heard of Lucentis which is widely used but this next generation drug is used in combination and looks to have incredible results. This kind of research just isn’t accessible in the UK which makes the effort of coming out here feel very worthwhile and exciting to see what’s coming round the corner.

A bit more stuff on injections for macular degeneration rounded out the morning and has given me some rather exciting ideas for where we could go in the future with optometry in Scotland.

The afternoon was a workshop on “Advanced Retinal Examination – 3 mirror and scleral indentation” which is not as bad as it sounds. This was a great chance to practically brush up on some skills to examine the peripheral retina to check more thoroughly for problems like retinal detachment. It was so useful I went an bought a new lens to put my new skills into practice in Scotland and take advantage of the great exchange rate.

Tonight I ‘partied’ until 8pm again but stayed up catching up on emails until 9pm!