Transcript:

Optometric Management:

Hi, this is Sarah Fackler, Managing Editor of Optometric Management, and I'm here with Dr. Mohammad Rafieetary and Dr. Roya Attar to talk about the American Academy of Optometry's Retina Summit that's happening on April 18th in Indianapolis. Dr. Rafieetary and Attar, your sessions are going to cover AMD, imaging, diabetic retinopathy, and inherited retinal disease. What do you hope ODs in attendance, or anyone who's accessing the content afterward, will get from your sessions?

Roya Attar, OD, MBA, FAAO:

What I hope will be one of the biggest takeaways from the meeting is about how much retinal care is evolving beyond simply making a diagnosis. There will be a strong emphasis on recognizing risk earlier and understanding subtle findings, utilizing imaging to do so, utilizing artificial intelligence to assist with that, and then just focusing on how many of the more important clinical decisions are happening before a diagnosis is actually clearly defined when imaging may be one of our best tools when symptoms and signs are vague and progression may be uncertain.

Mohammad Rafieetary, OD, FAAO:

The most common conditions that patients are referred to retina practices with—and the most common topics clinical trials are being done about—are age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. So, we want to make sure we cover these 2 topics in a clinical and simple fashion as to, as Dr. Attar said, the risks, the biomarkers. Why is it that these conditions are important? Because millions of people are afflicted with them, and these are common reasons that people lose vision and in some cases go blind. So we want to make it in a very clinical fashion as to how to diagnose these conditions, when the right time is to refer patients, what's going to happen to these patients after they're referred, and what the general practitioner's obligation is after they refer patients to follow them throughout the patient's life. We can't think about these patients in 6-month intervals. We have to think about our patients in a long-term fashion. If I'm seeing a 30-year-old, what is that patient's visual function going to be when they're 60 years old, 70 years old, 80 years old? Those are many, many years that these diseases will progress through.

The other topic we're going to talk about is inherited retinal disorders. Although these are rare conditions, again, they are conditions that are difficult to diagnose, and there are a lot of clinical trials about these conditions too. So we are going to talk particularly about genetic testing and how genetic testing can help pinpoint the diagnosis because from a phenotypic standpoint, many of these conditions are very difficult and challenging to not only diagnose, but also to diagnose differentially between other things, such as autoimmune disorders or infectious disorders of the retina. They all look alike basically at some point.

Roya Attar, OD, MBA, FAAO:

And on that note, I want to add that a key theme of the program will be how much retinal care is shaped by the decisions that ODs will often make because a lot of times we are encountering these patients first. So when we see these patients with these different types of retinal conditions, making those decisions about when to monitor, when to refer, and how urgently to act, there's not always a clear-cut protocol to drive these decisions. They require clinical judgment, context, and understanding how these diseases evolve over time, particularly in comanagement settings.

Mohammad Rafieetary, OD, FAAO:

From the meeting standpoint itself, one of the unique things of this particular type of meeting, the niche meetings are, for one thing, the attendees do not have to decide which course to go to. The curriculum is laid out. You come in for 6 and a half hours, we have it set, you have the break sessions, and you sit down to talk about very specific conditions. We assume most colleagues in attendance are those who are interested and are actually dealing with retina patients and retina care. Part of the reason optometry is in a much better position today than it was 20, 25 years ago is being able to diagnose these patients based on the advances that we made in retinal imaging. And that's another topic we are going to talk about. We are going to talk about OCT, fundus autofluorescence, OCTA, fundus photography, and some of the biomarkers of the diseases that we commonly see that we can detect by these imaging techniques and devices and tools.

And then, the other part of this is because these are smaller, more intimate meetings, it's going to be conversational and interactive. We want the audience to engage us. We want them to challenge us. If we make a mistake, if we say something that's wrong, we all learn from each other. We are not there to teach; we are there for our continued education and lifelong learning.

Roya Attar, OD, MBA, FAAO:

So overall, the Retina Summit is really about reinforcing that modern retinal care is not just about identifying disease; it's also about better decision-making, better communication, and better coordination of care, and to improve our overall patient outcomes and manage these different conditions that we see regardless of practice modality.

Mohammad Rafieetary, OD, FAAO:

In conclusion, I want to thank our colleagues at the American Academy of Optometry and the staff that will be making this possible. Also, our technology and our industry sponsors. Without industry sponsors, a lot of these meetings are not possible to do. So we thank them and we want the audience to be there to also appreciate and acknowledge the work that goes to putting meetings like that together. Thank you all very much.