Virtual WIO Summer Symposium to highlight community and leadership
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“Strength in Community” is the leading theme of this year’s Women in Ophthalmology Summer Symposium, which is now an all virtual event.
Stymied by the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Florida, the event, whose original venue was Amelia Island, will be held online Aug. 21-23.
“We have a fully virtual meeting planned and ready to execute,” program chair Wanda Martinez, MD, told Healio/OSN.
The symposium’s scientific sessions will include more than 150 research posters and will highlight surgical and medical innovations pending in the next decade. Under the circumstances, an interactive session on how to communicate via video and webcasts should be very popular, Martinez said.
The symposium is presenting a leadership panel hosted by prominent women in academia and industry, as well as a leadership workshop for women interested in heading clinical trials.
In panel sessions addressing current events, panelists will discuss diversity in ophthalmology and share their experiences practicing ophthalmology in the new reality of the COVID-19 era.
“I think it will still provide the same empowering energy that the WIO meetings are known for,” Martinez said.
Signature “live well” sessions and themed networking times will add to the symposium’s positive and supportive attitude, Martinez said. To stave off “virtual meeting fatigue,” the meeting planners are augmenting the program with “innovative and fun” art and kitchen sessions.
A surgical mini-symposium specifically designed for the virtual meeting has been added.
“As surgeons we are used to recording and reviewing surgical videos to teach or for self-assessment,” Martinez said. “In the symposium we will share our videos with all our attendees.”
To engage residents, a special question and answer session with recent graduates and a session on interview skills have been added.
“Women in all stages of their career attend and participate. It is empowering to see how the women ‘ahead of me’ have gotten to where they are. The ‘if they did it, so can I’ attitude is infectious,” she said.
Keynote addresses are expected to be inspirational, Martinez said.
“We need any support we can get through these trying times, especially as COVID-19 cases continue to increase nationwide,” she said. “We are all out on the front lines treating patients despite the risk, because we feel the obligation to keep our promise to patients and uphold our mission to care for vision. This symposium will be an oasis for us to connect, share, learn, encourage and strengthen our bonds as a community.”
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