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American Orthoptic Journal AbstractTo request a single copy of any journal article, contact us at: 608 263-0654 (voice), or journals@wwwtest.uwpress.wisc.edu (email). Articles will be photocopied and mailed within two business days. Please prepay with VISA or MasterCard. Articles up to 29 pages in length are priced at $15.00. Articles containing 30 or more pages are priced at $25.00. For article reprints in quantities of 25-500 please use our online reprint ordering system by clicking Reprint Orders.
Volume 47, 1997, p. vi Editorial
I have the honor to serve as President of the American Orthoptic Council for 1996-97, and to convey the Council's greeting to all orthoptists. The Council is firmly committed to a direct and prominent voice of Certified Orthoptists in the issues of highest importance to them. The organization has evolved from a group consisting only of ophthalmologists to where it now includes seven orthoptist members, including leaders of the American Association of Certified Orthoptists, among its total of twenty. Receiving the viewpoint of the constituency we serve during our deliberations, rather than as a response after the fact, leads to better decision making.
With the same objective, for several years there has been a reciprocal arrangement with the Canadian Orthoptic Council, under which each body includes a representative of the other. This has resulted in a sharing of mutual concerns and valuable experience with an expanded range of possible solutions. AOC members also have been prominent in JCAHPO, a collaboration which helps keeps the Council apprised of the problems facing health care delivery now and in the future.
On this page over the past several years, my predecessors have discussed the current challenges to orthoptics as a profession, and what must be done to ensure its future and its contribution to the health of our patients. I would like to update your awareness of the Council's activities in furtherance of these goals over the past year.
An exciting new initiative has been launched to enhance recruitment of new orthoptists into the profession. In the past two years, a committee of the Council has examined the reestablishment of a basic science course, with the goal of encouraging the development of regional clinical training programs by providing the opportunity to integrate with this course and create a total orthoptic educational experience acceptable under Council guidelines. With such more locally accessible training possibilities, interested candidates unable to relocate great distances from their home areas for the full training duration might not be lost to orthoptics.
AOC orthoptist member Heather Macpherson has organized such a course, to be held during the summer of 1997 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Several Council members, both ophthalmologist and orthoptist, are among the faculty. The Council is confident that this effort will successfully add to our present excellent academic center-based training programs, the need for which will continue. Along the same lines, the AOC has developed a series of basic science video tapes, which has been enthusiastically subscribed beyond original expectations. Further expansion of this program to extend its comprehensiveness is planned, based on the initial response. The tapes can be used not only in orthoptic training programs, but by other health care personnel as well, and in recruiting efforts to give interested individuals a "what it's like" informational background about orthoptics.
Our focus is directed to the practicing orthoptist as well as the potential student. We have begun a dialogue with the American Academy of Pediatrics to promote the increasingly diverse role of the orthoptist in the eye care of children. Also during the past year, the Council has updated and simplified the ethical code required to be adopted by both newly certified and recertified orthoptists, and is examining the ophthalmologist sponsor requirement and orthoptist employment/financial relationship models for their relevance to present-day practice patterns, especially under managed care.
Other early-stage Council projects to increase awareness of orthoptics include exposure on the Internet, and an opportunity for ophthalmologists and orthoptists to collaborate i developing orthoptics-oriented symposia for the scientific program of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus. The Council also encourages orthoptists to take advantage of the educational and networking opportunities possible through AAPOS membership.
The AOC will continue its efforts to maintain and elevate the profession of orthoptic Orthoptists are encouraged to help it achieve these goals through their own participation at the national and regional levels of the AACO. This will allow us to meet the present future challenges of today's health care environment.
Edward L. Raab, M.D., President |
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