Greetings for 2012!
We are grateful that you, the optometric community, find this annual work beneficial to your professional growth and of service to your patients. Thank you for the many encouraging words you share with us at our lecture programs.

While the pharmaceutical pipeline has been relatively quiet this past year, there have been several pertinent articles published that shed more light in clinical areas germane to patient care and have great relevance to practicing optometrists. This year, we are using many teaching slides from our lectures to highlight salient features of new research that should directly impact our practice patterns. We hope you find this slight format modification helpful in keeping you on the cutting edge of clinical knowledge.

Of note, Bausch + Lomb has recently announced it will buy ISTA Pharmaceuticals, which will expand its drug portfolio and pipeline. In regard to this publication, though, the medications are still listed under their respective companies because B+L and ISTA are still operating independently until the acquisition is officially completed.

On behalf of our fine profession, we sincerely thank Review of Optometry and Bausch + Lomb for teaming with us to enable the sharing of this knowledge with all of our colleagues.

Though stated a few years ago, human nature does not change, and we thought the following quotes might encourage and inspire:

Patient Expectations Regarding Eye Care:
Focus Group Results
"Honesty was not only the most frequent cited expectation among focus group
participants as a whole, but also the most frequently cited expectation area among
all subgroups as well."

"The observation that ophthalmology patients place greater emphasis on communication
and interpersonal manner than technical interventions is consistent with
a previous study, which found that patient satisfaction is more closely linked to
patients’ perceptions about whether they received nontechnical interventions, such
as education, than technical interventions, such as diagnostic tests."

Dawn AG, Santiago-Turla C, Lee PP. Patient expectations regarding eye care: focus group results.
Arch Ophthalmol. 2003 Jun;121(6):762-8.

Our very best wishes to you all,

Ron Melton, O.D.              Randall Thomas, O.D., M.P.H.