Eyeworld Daily News

21 EW SHOW DAILY ASCRS•ASOA Symposium & Congress, Los Angeles 2017 immediately on their phone, tablet, or PC. We formed a new committee to oversee EyeConnect and empow- ered them to keep the conversation fresh and keep things pertinent. The number of posts, responses, and par- ticipants has gone up. We're now in the midst of offering a new channel for young doctors. We wanted an area for young doctors to ask a more basic or complex question and get input from other doctors all over the world. We're looking to have a men- toring program and a grand rounds type format periodically, with the potential to earn CME. We've started a new EyeConnect symposium at the annual meeting. The folks active with EyeConnect are running their own symposium and presenting highlights of cases. This gives people the chance to see and hear from new faces. We launched the ASCRS Center for Learning last year and CME 365 education. The amount of hits for both far exceeded what we had envi- sioned. We updated the IOL calcu- lator site (iolcalc.ascrs.org). We owe a huge thanks to Warren Hill, MD, Doug Koch, MD, Li Wang, MD, Graham Barrett, MD, John Berdahl, MD, and Dave Hardten, MD. Ophthalmologists around the world take advantage of that more than a quarter-million times a year. late part of their careers. We wanted the committee to be as diverse as our members. Their mandate is to help recruit new members, retain members, and respond to members depending on where they are in their career. I've been pleased with the work they've done so far. We formed something called the Council of 100. It's a group of 100 individuals we run things by from time to time. It's a way for the lead- ership to get a pulse on the society. I asked people to volunteer last year during my speech, and we ran out of the application forms. It's been a valuable asset. Sometimes member- ship feels that leadership isn't aware of how they feel about things. Now we have the Council of 100 to run things by, and we have great oppor- tunities to communicate. We started a Council of 52 to help with our political action com- mittee, eyePAC, fundraising. They serve as state captains, connecting with peers, helping to raise funds, and personally delivering donations on behalf of eyePAC to their con- gressional representatives. We've always had an online fo- rum with EyeConnect, and we want- ed to see how we could modernize it. I wanted to make it easier to com- municate and make it more instan- taneous. We developed the EyeCon- nect app where users can view cases, read interesting things, and respond plishments and highlights from the past year. EyeWorld: What do you see as the biggest accomplishments at ASCRS over the past year? Dr. Solomon: One of the things that was really important was trying to get us back to our roots and creat- ing opportunities for members to get more engaged in the society. In its essence, that's how the society started: People speaking on a peer- to-peer basis, coalescing on common themes, and advocating for those themes. I wanted to help people get more involved and refocus ASCRS objectives around the members. We had a number of initiatives for those things. We've had huge re- sponses where membership engage- ment is significantly higher than over a year ago. All total, fully 21% of ASCRS members now volunteer or contribute to the society in some capacity, whether serving on a lead- ership committee, acting as reviewer, or participating in our advocacy or foundation programs. One change we've made is forming a Membership Committee chaired by John Berdahl, MD. It's comprised of a wide-ranging, diverse group of individuals because our membership is diverse. This in- cludes physicians in private practice, academics, and physicians in the early part of their careers and in the I n his year as ASCRS president, Kerry Solomon, MD, Mt. Pleas- ant, South Carolina, has sup- ported the society's increasing focus on member engagement as well as advocacy. Dr. Solomon is a cataract, LASIK, and advanced vision correc- tion specialist at Carolina Eyecare Physicians, director of the Caroli- na Eyecare Research Institute, and clinical professor of ophthalmology at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). He was professor of ophthalmology at MUSC, where he practiced for 17 years. He held several key positions at MUSC, in- cluding director of cataract, refrac- tive, and cornea services at Storm Eye Institute, medical director of the Magill Vision Center, and director of the Magill Research Center. At today's ASCRS Opening Gen- eral Session, Bonnie Henderson, MD, ASCRS vice president, Boston, will replace Dr. Solomon to become president. Dr. Solomon recently spoke with EyeWorld about accom- Dr. Solomon reflects on his year as ASCRS president Kerry Solomon, MD continued on page 24 by Vanessa Caceres EyeWorld Contributing Writer " The number one challenge will be how to survive and thrive.… It's going to be important for members, especially young members, to stay involved, engaged, and when the time comes, advocate in a grassroots fashion. " –Kerry Solomon, MD ASCRS•ASOA ALL ACCESS APP Download to use the Exhibitor Directory and Exhibit Hall Map. Downloadable from the app store. Search ASCRS ASOA All Access.

• Cover