Editorial February 2017 - A warm welcome from Rudy MMA Nuijts

[caption id="attachment_7127" align="alignnone" width="750"] Boekhandel Dominicanen, Maastricht[/caption]   The 21st ESCRS Winter Meeting is a unique meeting for me as it is taking place in my home town and I am delighted and honoured that this is the 
first time an ESCRS Winter Meeting is being held in The Netherlands. For once the conference is coming to me, instead of me coming to the conference! It will feel strange to be able to leave my home every morning and travel directly to the conference centre, 
instead of heading to the airport and booking into a hotel in a foreign country, but I am looking forward to the experience. I am also very happy to get the opportunity to work with my colleagues from the Netherlands Intra Ocular Implant Club and the Belgian Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons for this meeting, and we hope you enjoy the programme we have to offer. The extended didactic programme includes courses in Basic Optics, Cataract, Refractive and Cornea and I hope these courses will offer a valuable opportunity for residents and those in training to gain a deeper understanding of the basics of the different subspecialties. The meeting also includes a Young Ophthalmologists Programme, four main symposia, free paper sessions, moderated poster sessions, ePoster presentations and a range of surgical skills training courses. Among the topics being covered in the main symposia are crosslinking, stents in glaucoma and the long-term outcomes in refractive surgery. The Annual Cornea Day has been organised once again in conjunction with EuCornea and I would like to thank EuCornea for their continued participation in the meeting. Among the hot topics being discussed are lamellar keratoplasty, intraoperative optical coherence tomography and infectious disease. A major highlight of the meeting is the live surgery 
session, which is being transmitted from the Maastricht University Medical Centre on Saturday afternoon and which will include a DMEK case and a MIGS case this year. A symposium organised by the Netherlands Intra Ocular Implant Club and the Belgian Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons takes 
place on Sunday. The Netherlands and Belgium are small countries, but they have played a major role in so many areas of ophthalmic surgery, and we will discuss some of these innovations at this symposium. I realise that, with so much activity taking place over three days, it will be impossible for delegates to attend every single session. The good news is that the EuroTimes team are reporting at the meeting, producing a daily newspaper featuring some of the main highlights. Reports from the meeting will also appear in future editions of EuroTimes and also on the website at: www.eurotimes.org Delegates can also log on to the Education Portal on the ESCRS website and access the sessions and didactic courses on ESCRS On Demand and ESCRS iLearn. Interviews and video presentations featuring some of the main presenters at the meeting will also be available in the coming months on the ESCRS Video Player at: player.escrs.org Finally, I would encourage delegates to take some time out to explore our historic city, visit our excellent restaurants, and enjoy our hospitality.