Richard L. Lindstrom, MD, shares thoughts on his tenure with OSN

Issue: January 25, 2014

The following is excerpted from an interview with Richard L. Lindstrom, MD.

Ocular Surgery News: How do you view your role as Chief Medical Editor of OSN evolving over the years?

Richard L. Lindstrom, MD: Rather than simply being an isolated Chief Medical Editor of a newspaper 20 years ago, I am now more of an integrated partner with the company in regard to its entire mission of education. We have gone through unbelievable changes in how industry interacts with publications, doctors and continuing medical education (CME). I have been involved in developing all the meetings that we stage. I see myself as a partner, friend and adviser to the whole company in its mission of educating ophthalmologists around the world.

OSN: Are there any specific moments that you can recall in which you have felt your association with OSN has made an impact on our readership or been particularly satisfying?

Lindstrom: When we decided to create the cover stories and then have me write an associated perspective as “Lindstrom’s Perspective,” that was positively received. The features address every specialty as well as what is going on socially and politically in medicine.

For me, the most difficult perspectives to write are the ones that are in a field in which I do not actively participate. I have to do some research. I am an actively practicing ophthalmologist, so I try to put the feature articles into that perspective. If I have questions, then I presume other practicing ophthalmologists have similar questions. So I try to answer those questions, and I have gotten very good feedback.

While it can be a challenge, it has also been a great deal of fun. It seems like sometimes you just finish one and the next one is due, but I really have enjoyed adding that into the overall leadership of the publication. I am quite proud of the quality of the feature articles that we write, but I feel pretty good about the perspectives as well.

OSN: Your leadership at OSN meetings is a staple for us. Are there any moments you recall at Kiawah Eye, New York, Hawaii or Italy that particularly stand out?

Lindstrom: No doubt, it has been fun to see the Hawaiian Eye meeting grow. The first year I participated in the Royal Hawaiian Eye Meeting was 1982. There were 42 ophthalmologists there. I have done it now for 32 years straight and helped put together the partnership that allowed SLACK Incorporated to assume the responsibility for that meeting. It is certainly a great program.

Kiawah Eye and OSN New York were created while I was associated with the company, and I have directed the OSN New York meeting from day 1. We have created a high-quality program there. We did the same in Rome; that is certainly one of the best live surgery programs that I have ever experienced in the world. So, the meetings themselves are worth being proud of.

OSN: Balancing industry relationships with unbiased news coverage is our challenge. How do you see this challenge affecting the quality of our reporting?

Lindstrom: What we try to do over a series of articles is create a balanced report of all the different things that are going on in the industry and all the new technologies. At Ocular Surgery News, we have always disclosed relationships. I have been an advocate of that from day 1, and I have not seen that as a major issue. But the changes in the CME field and the ability to educate one’s colleagues in an appropriate fashion have become more difficult. So much of medicine is off label. It is just impossible for the companies to get everything approved on label for every possible indication for every drug and device. As soon as something is approved, we physicians, in the best interests of our patients, are out there trying to figure out how to take advantage of technology in every possible way that can help people. Knowing how to educate our colleagues and what can be said about non-FDA approved indications has been definitely a large challenge.

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From day 1 inside The Wyanoke Group, the approach has been to do it right — to understand the laws and make sure we follow the rules and regulations. We have been in a major leadership position in that regard, way ahead, if you will, of the other major societies in our field. We can be proud of that.

OSN: Are there instances that you believe that OSN has contributed the “power of the press” to shed light and engage others to take action?

Lindstrom: OSN is widely read. There is no doubt it is a tool that influences change. It is one of the most widely read publications in ophthalmology. It is true: We are not afraid to confront the difficult issues. We were out front in suggesting that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration might be stifling innovation by becoming too difficult in its process. It did change — not just in response to our constructive criticism, but in response to a lot of input. In my opinion, it is doing a better job, and we are happy to report that, too.

OSN: How has Internet technology influenced your writing and research over the past 20 years?

Lindstrom: When I have a difficult topic that I am not sure that I have the knowledge to write a good commentary on, I get my information on the Internet. I have been practicing ophthalmology for 40 years, and I have a large library of textbooks. I have collected journals for decades and gotten them bound and put them in my library. But I have kind of quit doing that in the last 4 or 5 years. I do not ever find myself, to be honest, ever going there anymore. I simply go on the Internet, including Healio.com, and find all the information that I need. That is a huge change. We used to keep file cabinets. One would say “complicated cataract surgery” and one would say “pseudoexfoliative glaucoma.” One would say “cystoid macular edema.” I would pull out articles and file them away. I just do not find that necessary anymore. Using the Internet, we can find 100-plus articles in a few minutes, and then if we want to read them in more depth, we can; if we wish to print them out, we can. That has been a great boon and made things much easier.

OSN: Is there anything else you want to say?

Lindstrom: To put it in a total perspective, I am proud of the fact that OSN is the leading publication in ophthalmology because it basically provides a broad and unbiased perspective on what is new and interesting in the field. I am proud that it has continued to grow in stature and that I have been associated with it over the past 30 years. I am proud that I have lasted as long as I have as Chief Medical Editor. I am proud that we have continued to make incremental if not disruptive change in the way we communicate with ophthalmologists around the world, constantly transitioning how we present information.

Once in a while I go back and look at the old issues and compare them to the modern issues. There is no doubt that we are way better than we ever were in the printed medium. On the digital side, we have made unbelievable progress. That is something we can all be proud of.

I am also proud of the people who work for SLACK, how hard they work and how much they care that the information that they are sharing is accurate and appropriate and well written and timely. I do not deserve the credit for it, but I am proud to be a part of it.