Interview with Charles McGhee, MB, BSc(Hons), PhD, FRCS(G), FRCOphth, FRANZCO, FRSA

OSN presents excerpts from a podcast interview with Prof. McGhee about the upcoming Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology meeting in Bali.

Ocular Surgery News: As co-chair for the scientific program committee at this year’s Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology-American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting, what hot topics in ophthalmology would you say the meeting is highlighting?

Charles McGhee, MB, BSc(Hons), PhD, FRCS(G), FRCOphth, FRANZCO, FRSA: This meeting in 2009 is going to be exciting because it’s covering many of the currently hot topics. Obviously, there will be a big focus on cataract and refractive surgery, as always, and new techniques, and one of the advantages we have in the Asia-Pacific is we’re not always limited by [the U.S. Food and Drug Administration] — in fact, we’re not limited by FDA restrictions at all — so you might find there’s material there that is the result of clinical studies that are not quite able to be done in the [U.S.] at the present time.

Another area that is hot — and we’re interested in — is anti-VEGF treatment and age-related macular degeneration. There will be a number of presentations on that.

An area that’s unique and much more prevalent in the Asia-Pacific is chronic angle-closure glaucoma, and a number of speakers will deal with that topic. Of course, being interested in imaging, there will be some exciting imaging courses, and we can talk about that later.

OSN: Has the joint pairing of the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology-American Academy of Ophthalmology had any impact on planning the scientific program and, if so, how will attendees benefit from that impact?

Prof. McGhee: It’s had a tremendous impact and a beneficial impact. One of the things that we have now is, we’re not just seeing hot topics from around Asia-Pacific, which obviously is a vast population. And previously, we did attract a lot of speakers from Europe, but this year, we have a large number of top-quality speakers from the U.S.

Charles McGhee

We have topics that are important in Asia, which may or may not be so topical or important in the U.S, but then equally we have topics from the U.S. that have a different complexion or the speakers have a different viewpoint that we want to learn about in Asia-Pacific.

The mixing and the breadth of opinion will be important. The other thing is, by making it such a global meeting, we now have top speakers in every specialty and every area of research. It provides enormous opportunities for cross-pollination and for networking, and this is going to be one of the best meetings of the year. And certainly by combining the APAO and AAO strengths, we’re going to produce a tremendous meeting, which everyone will enjoy.

OSN: What are the roles of the six coordinators in each subspecialty in the scientific program?

Prof. McGhee: The roles of the coordinators are interesting. First of all, everyone’s been involved to some extent in designing the program. The program will entertain, hopefully, 5,000 (delegates) and 500 faculty members and has 18 topics areas. It obviously is pretty complex with the number of coordinators in each region. One of the things that we’ve all been involved in is attracting the speakers. You often know the area that’s hot, the area that we’d like to get a speaker in, but can we attract the keynote speaker, can we attract the best speaker? And often attracting speakers is based on personal knowledge of those speakers. So if I’m invited by Dr. X, who I know is really into that topic area and is likely to produce a good symposium or a good course, I’m much more likely to go and join that symposium course than if I don’t know anyone.

By having six coordinators, we’ve been able to reach out and contact so many more that we wouldn’t have been able to if we’d only had a limited number of coordinators. The other thing is the coordinators have worked with many national, international and supranational regional professional bodies — because it’s not just APAO and AAO, there’s actually about 42 organizations now involved in this meeting.

Again, there are some specifics of professional societies or local committees that we might not be aware of in New Zealand or Australia or in the U.S. or in India or China or Hong Kong, but by having a breadth of coordinators, we can deal with all those appropriately.

At the end of the day, the coordinators have ensured the breadth of the topic area. They’ll appeal to both the generalist ophthalmologist and the subspecialist ophthalmologist, and of course, some of the coordinators have been involved very much in making sure the local logistics run smoothly.

OSN: So as both the scientific program committee co-chair and the Pacific Region Coordinator for the subspecialty of Ocular Imaging, what are your duties in helping plan the meeting?

Prof. McGhee: It’s a great honor to be involved in the program committee and to be involved in the role as a co-chair. My biggest role has been trying to attract other chairs, try to suggest other coordinators and ensuring consistency across the topic, so we don’t have some strong topics and some weaker topics. We’re trying to ensure that all 18 topic areas are consistently supported by the best speakers.

Again, I’ve been involved particularly in my area, but also other areas, in attracting quality speakers. My background is from Scotland and the U.K., so I know a lot of speakers in Europe. Also, I’m based in New Zealand and Australia, so I know a lot of speakers here. So I’ve been involved in attracting speakers, like many of the other coordinators and chairs have been involved in. So it’s been a fairly broad role, but mainly ensuring consistency as far as possible.

OSN: What unique aspects of ocular imaging, specific to the Pacific Region, do you hope to bring to the meeting?

Prof. McGee: Well, of course, imaging is one of my favorite topics, and I’m particularly interested in corneal imaging. So there will be a number of studies looking at higher-order aberration being generated by cornea and health and disease, particularly things like subclinical keratoconus, which is a great worry for those involved in refractive surgery.

We’ll also have a session looking at in vivo confocal microscopy, and that’s an area that has a burgeoning literature. It has expanded enormously in the last 10 years. A lot of that research has been done in New Zealand and Australia, so there will be a strong suit of presentations in that area.

Areas that are particularly interesting to those in Asia-Pacific, and also globally, are things like imaging ocular blood flow and imaging age-related macular degeneration. In terms of significant local interest, we have imaging of chronic angle-closure glaucoma and the management of chronic open angle-closure glaucoma in terms of imaging.

We have both the broader international interest in the ocular imaging special presentations, but we also have some specific presentations of local interest. The mix will attract a lot of people and make sure that people will all go away with some new knowledge, which is always what you hope to do when people come to an international meeting.

• Charles McGhee, MB, BSc(Hons), PhD, FRCS(G), FRCOphth, FRANZCO, FRSA, can be reached at the Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand; e-mail: c.mcghee@auckland.ac.nz.

• The APAO-AAO Joint Meeting will take place May 16-19 in Bali, Indonesia. For more information or to register online, go to www.apao2009bali.org.