Initiatives to look forward to this year from the AOA

For Steven T. Reed, OD, president of the American Optometric Association (AOA), it's never too early to anticipate the organization's Optometry's Meeting. This year's meeting will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Additionally, Reed highlights some of the public-facing initiatives that optometrists should familiarize themselves with.

Video transcript

Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Steven T. Reed, OD:

First of all, Optometry's Meeting is always exciting, no matter where it is. Of course, this year is going to be in Minneapolis, [Minnesota] and we are proud to partner with the World Council of Optometry. We look forward to having them in. I was on the World Council of optometry board years ago, and I served with their current president, Sandy Block, and she's been great for that organization. We also look forward to welcoming our Canadian colleagues that are just north of us there, since we'll be in Minneapolis, and so we expect it to be a very, very big meeting overall.

You know, 1 of the things that that many members don't see, because we're not the target audience, is our reach out to the public. It's very, very important that the public knows and understands the benefit of having a yearly comprehensive examination. What we have to do is we have to make sure that they know that an eye exam is not just something you do on the side, it is a part of your overall health care. As you're well aware, I mean, there's over 270 systemic diseases that that can have manifestations within the eyes, and so we're actually a part of the health care team. And so we have our Eye Deserve More campaign, and we have tailored that over time to various groups, from athletes to gamers. Last year, we did a model eye and set this up in New York to show people just how magnificent the eye is when compared to current technology, and give them some appreciation that, hey, if you take care of your iPhone the way you do, why not take care of your eyes? They're even more more incredible than anything we have in current technology.