OM Symposium:
The Sequel Meets Lofty Standards

The Optometric Management Symposium on Contemporary Eye Care scores big with meeting attendees.

Although sequels can be risky affairs, the second annual "Optometric Management Symposium on Contemporary Eyecare" met the lofty standards set by the first year's meeting. More than 300 optometrists and allied vision care professionals attended the symposium, held in November at the Disney Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Fla.

While the meeting provided all the amenities of a vacation resort, attendees received as many as 26 hours of continuing education (CE) credit in subjects critical to progressive optom-etrists, including glaucoma diagnosis and management, ocular surgery comanagement, keratoconus management, ocular pharmacology, contact lenses and practice management.

Course Directors Deepak Gupta, O.D., and Walter D. West, O.D., developed a program that coupled the diverse topics with leading experts in optometry today. "Once again this meeting was awesome," says Dr. Gupta. "When you combine well-respected lecturers who are experts in their fields, with the practical approach Optometric Management offers, and the fact that everything was held at Disney World, this is the best overall meeting around. The only thing better is going to be OMS 2007."

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Key to the meeting's success were the ophthalmic companies that sponsored the mealtime seminars. Alcon, Alimera Sciences, Bausch & Lomb, Carl Zeiss Meditec, CooperVision, Odyssey and Unilens all shared their expertise in terms of products, services and information on topics ranging from dry eye to disease to contact lenses. Additional exhibits by Briot USA, Eyemaginations, Marco and Ziemer Ophthalmics rounded out the exhibit hall and provided information on leading-edge technologies in eye care.

The CE difference

Attendees attributed much of the value of OMS to its educational program. Over one weekend, some were able to earn all their CE credits for the year. However, the optometrists in attendance applauded not only the quantity of CE, but also the quality. OMS provided "great information from some of optometry's best speakers," said one attendee. Another commented that the OMS schedule is great with "lots of CE in a very efficient manner."

The curriculum and instructors included:

Clinical Pearls in Diagnosing Glaucoma (Murray Fingeret, O.D.)
Comanaging Ocular Surgery (J. James Thimons, O.D.)
Guide to Ocular Laser Surgery (Dr. Thimons)
Complete Update on Ocular Pharmacology (Ronald Melton, O.D., and Randall Thomas, O.D.)
Practice Management: When Good Enough Isn't Good Enough Anymore (Dr. West)
Competing with 1-800 Numbers for Your CL Business (Dr. Gupta)
Contact Lens Update (Ernie Bowling, O.D.)
Keratoconus (Dr. Bowling).

See you in 2007

The Optometric Management Symposium 2007 will be held from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 in the Buena Vista Palace Resort at Walt Disney World. The best reason to go perhaps was given by an attendee at last year's meeting, an O.D. with 25 years experience: "This is the best meeting I've attended."