Jackie Garlich, OD, FAAO, shares her perspective on the need-to-know details from Day 1 of the American Academy of Optometry (AAOPT) annual meeting, including her top recommendations to get the most out of the event as optometry kicks off the year’s biggest meeting.
AAOPT is here! How are you feeling?
This is one of my favorite meetings because the education here is at such a high level. There’s just a lot of energy and enthusiasm because we have new FDA approvals—there’s Xdemvy (Tarsus Pharmaceuticals) and MIEBO (Bausch + Lomb), which are both first-of-their-kind treatments for Demodex blepharitis and DED, respectively. There’s a lot of buzz happening in the ocular surface disease space especially.
Plus, we can’t forget about the launch of Iyzueh (Théa Pharma) in the glaucoma space at the end of September, which is also creating a lot of excitement in eye care.
Talk about the education portion.
I find the education here is really a good mix of clinical application along with deeper science-based lectures. So, it provides a lot of color and background on why we do some of the things we do clinically.
These lectures are great at pulling in new research coming out in eye care—as we’ll see over the next few days—and showing us how that might be changing some of our practice patterns.
Click here to see the education grid.
How would you describe the vibe?
Even just walking around, you can see groups of people who maybe haven’t seen each other since the last meeting, whether that be Vision Expo West (check out our Glance coverage here) just a couple of weeks ago or Optometry’s Meeting in June.
There’s just endless excitement among both industry and optometric professionals.
What are you most looking forward to?
Where to begin…
There are a lot of good dinner presentations going on that are highlighting some of these new therapeutics in eye care (check out our Day 1 show daily for the details).
Aside from the lectures during the day, there are a number of events in the evening to choose from—both from an educational standpoint and a networking perspective—that are just the right balance of education and fun (again ... refer to our show daily)!
How about from the Exhibit Hall floor?
One of the really great things about Academy is the promotional specials going on for equipment.
Now’s a great time to look for that piece of equipment you’ve been wanting to buy—but have put off for too many reasons to name—because of the plethora of show specials available here for you to take advantage of.
And I say this firsthand, as I myself am in need of new equipment; I'm personally excited to walk the show floor and see what exhibitors are there (click here for a live map look).
The American Academy of Optometry (AAOPT) annual meeting is being held in New Orleans, Louisiana, October 11-14, 2023.