Youth, education and research driving ESCRS progress

“For young ophthalmologists we offer free membership for any three years of their training, bursaries to the annual congress and the winter meeting, and we also have the Observership grant programme which enables them to visit clinics in Europe for a period of one or two weeks,” he told delegates attending the Opening Ceremony at the XXXII ESCRS Congress.

Douglas Kock (left), who gave the Binkhorst Medal Lecture pictured with Peter Barry, president of the ESCRS

In terms of support for research, Dr Barry highlighted initiatives such as the ESCRS PreMed study on macular oedema after cataract surgery, a new femtolaser-assisted cataract surgery study and the EUREQUO patient outcomes register which has now recorded almost two million cataract surgeries in its database. An Endophthalmitis Registry has also been instituted to track patterns of bacterial breakthrough and microbial resistance, said Dr Barry, and a new 2013 version of the Endophthalmitis Guidelines has been made freely available to all delegates.