THE LEARNING CURVE

by Dr Francois Malecaze, president of EuCornea

We must never stop learning. These are exciting times for corneal surgeons and I am delighted to have been given this opportunity to write the editorial in this month’s EuroTimes.

Our cover story focuses on the advances in biotechnology that have helped to improve corneal and epithelial healing. As my colleague Sheraz Daya points out, different centres will use different techniques so there is a need for collaboration among these centres to discuss the best way forward.

Collaboration, of course, is one of the key goals of EuCornea and as president of the society I would like to encourage the co-ordination of cornea research projects in Europe and the organisation of multicentre studies between different centres of cornea in Europe.

We had a very successful Cornea Day organised by EuCornea and the ESCRS at the 19th ESCRS Winter Meeting in Istanbul, and we are now busy preparing for the 6th EuCornea Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Barcelona holds special memories for all of us in the society as EuCornea, a new subspecialty organisation dedicated to the specialty of cornea and ocular surface disease, was launched in Barcelona in 2009 during the XXVII Congress of the ESCRS. I was one of the founding members of the society along with Harminder Singh Dua, José Güell and Vincenzo Sarnicola and I am honoured to be serving as president this year and in 2016.

Six years ago, we started from a blank canvas with a shared commitment and enthusiasm. Due to the hard work of all our members the society has gone from strength to strength and it is now firmly established as a major point of reference for cornea specialists.

Our biggest challenge every year is to organise a Congress with an excellent scientific programme and we have lined up some excellent speakers to discuss issues such as crosslinking, cataract surgery in ocular surface disease and posterior lamellar keratoplasty.

This year’s programme will include three invited symposia, eight Focus Sessions, Instructional Courses and Skill Transfer Courses, and six Free Paper Sessions. The EuCornea Medal Lecture will be presented by John Dart, focusing on “Cicatrising Conjunctivitis Update: Translating Research into Effective Therapies”.

One of the major aims of EuCornea is to encourage young ophthalmologists to attend our meetings and play an active part in the society. The training of young cornea specialists is essential and I look forward to welcoming my younger colleagues to Barcelona in September. It is also important that our more established members work closely with young cornea specialists by helping them with their training.

This year’s EuCornea Congress will be partnered with the XXXIII Congress of the ESCRS. It is very important that EuCornea should continue its collaboration with ESCRS as we are still a young organisation and it is important that that we have a spirit of partnership with ESCRS and other societies.

Another important initiative that we are working on is the establishment of a new international journal dedicated to cornea specialists, which I believe will be of major benefit to the society.

Finally, I would like to say that even in this age of advanced communications where we can talk to each other by phone and email on a daily basis, nothing can replace the face-to-face conversation. For that reason, I would urge all my colleagues attending our Congress to talk to me and let me know what we can do to make EuCornea even more successful. Best wishes and I look forward to meeting you in Barcelona.