The 7th Annual Retina Fellows’ Forum, an invitational meeting for retina fellows in their final year of training, kicked off in Chicago (IL, USA) on Friday, January 26, 2007. This year’s meeting followed the model of past meetings’ success: an interactive meeting discussing scientific retina practice and lifestyle issues facing the graduating retina fellow. Each invited fellow received a travel grant to attend the all-expenses-paid meeting, made possible by the generous support of major corporate sponsor Bausch & Lomb and 15 additional corporate sponsors.
The Fellows’ Forum has become the pre-eminent retina fellow-based meeting over the past 7 years. The meeting routinely attracts over 90% of the senior North American retina fellows eligible for attendance. This year, approximately 70 retina fellows attended the conference. The meetings’ founders, Carl Awh, Tarek Hassan and David Chow, have developed a model to allow fellows to interact with practicing retina specialists, industry executives and their peers in retina. “Our goal has been to create the type of meeting we would have enjoyed ourselves as fellows, with emphasis placed upon subjects of particular interest to the new practitioner, where the differences in the approaches taught at different training programs are debated, and where social and academic interactions occur in a casual and unintimidating atmosphere. We’re delighted at the continuing success of the meeting,” they commented.
The meeting began on Friday evening with a symposium devoted to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), moderated by Peter Kaiser. This was the first year of the AMD Symposium, sponsored by Genentech. A welcome reception prior to the symposium and a dinner afterwards gave the fellows their initial introduction to their peers and to the faculty. The faculty, in addition to Awh, Hassan and Chow, included Brandon Busbee, Tom Chang, Diana Do, Kaiser and John Pollack.
The intensive all-day session on Saturday covered a number of clinical and practice management topics, ranging from new vitrectomy techniques and devices to advice on building and developing a practice. The lectures and discussion were enhanced by an electronic audience response system that allowed the fellows and faculty to give candid and anonymous responses to questions posed throughout the day. The immediate feedback afforded by the audience response system has proved to be a popular component of the meeting, often demonstrating surprising differences in experience, opinions and approaches. The fellows also received brief informational lectures from a representative of each corporate sponsor.
A highlight of this year’s meeting was the talk given by the distinguished guest lecturer, Harry Flynn. His lecture entitled ‘Mentoring in Retina: A Personal Experience’ gave an insightful look at the development of the Bascom Palmer Institute in Miami (FL, USA). Personal accounts of the leadership skills and mentoring of notable retina leaders, such as Donald Gass, were unique and interesting. Flynn tied his experience with a prominent teaching institution into a philosophy of creating a balanced life between professionalism and personal choices. He termed this the ‘10 history lessons’ from his career. Flynn spent the remainder of the meeting interacting with the fellows and faculty. He remained an active participant in all of the faculty lectures, while sitting among his fellow participants in the audience.
When asked about the experience that was gained at the 7th Annual Fellows forum, invitees were uniformly enthusiastic. Steve Truong is finishing his retina fellowship at UC Davis in California, USA. He thought the weekend meeting, “…was a great time to reconnect with my colleagues and establish new friendships in a very relaxed, fun and informative meeting. It was nice to really share my experiences with my colleagues and commiserate with them”. A similar message was echoed by Tuc Anh Ho, a senior retina fellow at Illinois Retina Associates, USA, “…the Fellows’ Forum provided a relaxed setting for fellows to meet leaders in the field of vitreoretinal surgery as well as a venue for fellows to develop lasting professional and personal relationships with their contemporaries”. Other fellows, including David Eichenbaum from the Tufts/OCB program in Boston (MA, USA), felt the meeting was a “…matriculation into a club, where you have a chance to meet your fellow inductees, mix with some of the senior members, share your experiences, and just have some fun with the group”. The sentiment was universal; the meeting was well worth the trip from every part of North America.
The Fellows’ Forum concluded this year’s meeting with the 2nd Annual Fellows’ Forum Bowling Tournament and Banquet at a high-end bowling club in downtown Chicago. The bowling challenge brought out the best and worst in the participants. No matter how well each team did, all had a great social experience that lasted into the night.
The annual Retina Fellows’ Forum remains a great success and a reminder for graduating retina fellows that it is “almost over but just beginning”. The fair-handed, generous support of competing companies to sponsor this meeting makes it unique among retina meetings. Future fellows will continue to converge on wintry Chicago to enjoy educational and social opportunities as they prepare for entry into the retina community.