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Steve Charles delivers 2018 Charles D. Kelman Innovator’s Lecture at ASCRS
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WASHINGTON — Steve Charles, MD, delivered the 2018 Charles D. Kelman Innovator’s Lecture at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery annual meeting and stressed the importance of collaboration, technological advances and the evolutionary nature of the development process.
Charles has transformed the field, having invented a significant number of the associated techniques and devices used by vitreoretinal surgeons worldwide. He has conducted more than 38,000 procedures, lectured in 50 countries and operated in 25 countries, said Ann Kelman, wife of the late Charles Kelman and a member of the ASCRS Foundation board.
“The thing I want to emphasize is the evolutionary nature of the process, the iterative nature and the collaborative nature of the process. If we’re obsessed with the fame game, naming an instrument after ourselves or getting what I call a vanity patent or obsessed with the money part of it, nothing happens. But if you collaborate, if multiple surgeons and multiple engineers collaborate, and we keep the patient and patient outcomes in mind, then good things happen,” Charles said.
There are few innovations that exist solely from one individual. As complexity increases, the need for large teams and multiple individuals collaborating to develop new techniques goes up as well, Charles said.
Engineers and surgeons need to interact to further techniques and technologies to advance the field, he said.
“I encourage all of you to collaborate with industry, and specifically not just with your reps, but with the engineering people who develop the products that we all need to help the patients to move forward in this field,” he said. – by Robert Linnehan
Reference:
Charles S. 2018 Charles D. Kelman Innovator’s Lecture: Systems engineering at the intersection of technology and technique. Presented at: American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery annual meeting; April 13-17, 2018; Washington.
Disclosure: Charles reports he is a consultant with Alcon; and earn royalties from, is compensated for travel expenses by and is a consultant with Alcon Laboratories.