Ken Nischal discusses the progress and goals of WSPOS at the 3rd WCPOS in Barcelona, Spain.

WSPOS first came together because David Granet and I found that there were people all over the world who had a lot of expertise in paediatric ophthalmology but had no way of sharing it with their colleagues in other countries. This left a real deficit of knowledge in many places around the world. Bringing these experts together in an international meeting enables us to help educate and train eye care professionals around the world, and in this way help the children that we all care for.

This is our third congress and also our third congress to be held in conjunction with the ESCRS. It is fair to say that without the ESCRS, WSPOS would never have existed – not only because of the organisational infrastructure it has provided, but also because holding the two congresses together makes it easier for general ophthalmologists to attend our meetings. For it is general ophthalmologists rather than paediatric specialists who look after most children in the world.

Both the attendance at our congresses and the scope of our activities have expanded since our first meeting in Barcelona in 2009. WCPOS is now a three-day meeting, whereas the first two meetings were two-day meetings. We also now have three keynote speakers, as opposed to two keynote speakers for the first two meetings.

We have strived to maintain a strong international component in our meetings and other activities so as to include a broad range of perspectives. For example, in our main symposia we almost always have contributions from presenters from several continents.

Furthermore, between our own meetings, we have symposia at different meetings around the world. This year those meetings included the Pan American Association in Bogotá, Colombia, the Asia-Pacific Association of Cataract & Refractive Surgeons Annual Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and we have the Paediatric Subspecialty Day at the  ESCRS congresses.

This year, for the first time we are awarding the Kanski Medal, an award for those whose work has improved the lives of children with ocular disease. It is not restricted to paediatric ophthalmologists, but can be awarded to anyone who has brought significant improvements to the eye care of children. We chose Helen Mintz-Hintner MD as our first Kanski medallist because of her work with anti-VEGF agents in the prevention of retinopathy of prematurity.

We are also holding the Oscars for our video competitions and we have the non-accidental injury mock trial, where we have two paediatric ophthalmologists taking opposing sides in the case and discussing it as if they were actually in a court of law.

Another thing we’re doing is targeted audience participation. By that I mean for one of our sessions we have invited those planning to attend to tell us what questions they would most like to have answered, and we will see that the most frequently asked questions are covered in the session. We hope to extend this idea further in our future meetings.