AAO promotes global community of healing

Selwa al-Hazza, MD, was featured via videotape at the AAO's special session in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The meeting was held to help foster world unity among physicians at the population at large.

NEW ORLEANS — The humanitarian duties of ophthalmologists were the focus of a moving special session here at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting. Speakers at the Monday event said ophthalmologists and physicians worldwide must foster hope and opportunity while condemning acts of terrorism.

After an opening montage that featured images from Sept. 11, AAO president George W. Blankenship, MD, urged ophthalmologists to go beyond simply being physicians. As a global community of professionals who interact constantly with people of all races and economic strata, he said, the ophthalmic community must do its part not only to rid blindness from the world but to elevate the well-being of the people they serve.

Dr. Blankenship reminded the audience that terrorism, often born in poverty and emptiness, is not bred only outside the United States — Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kazinski, he said, were born and raised in the schools and communities of this country.

Fritz Naumann, MD, president of the International Council of Ophthalmology, reminded physicians that they have a duty to fight against both moral and physical blindness — to think globally and act locally.

In a presentation via videotape, Selwa al-Hazza, MD, of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said that in her own life she has seen diversity as a complementary attribute, not a reason for separatism. As a Saudi Arabian national who was raised in Tucson, Ariz., and educated in the Baltimore/Washington area, Dr. al-Hazza said she has tried to take the best from both her worlds. She spoke about how the Islamic people of Saudi Arabia have condemned the terrorism of Sept. 11.

“All of us should have something to contribute, no matter how small or how big, in the process of healing. We are physicians, surgeons, health care professionals; we are healers, and in the process of healing after these tragic events we as people are brought closer together in this diverse world. This is a call to unity: one voice, one world and one vision,” Dr. al-Hazza said.

AAO Executive Director H. Dunbar Hoskins, MD, asked physicians to turn their eyes “toward the destiny of poverty, despair and suffering that contributes to [terrorism]. I hope each of us will speak out against evil and improve the plight of our fellow man. We must focus our energies on healing and working toward a unified world.”

The session ended with a video montage, set to John Lennon’s “Imagine," of the range of responses to the events of Sept. 11.