Presidential press conference looks back, defines goals

LAS VEGAS – American Optometric Association (AOA) outgoing president Richard Wallingford Jr., OD, and president-elect Thomas Crooks III, OD, reflected on the past year’s accomplishments and defined the goals of the future at a pres conference here Friday at Optometry’s Meeting, the AOA Congress.

“We’ve had a successful year,” Dr. Wallingford said. “We were successful in the passage of the Decorative Contact Lens Bill, which took 3 years to accomplish.”

“Dr. Wallingford also cited the AOA’s persistent lobbying against Senate Bill 1955, which was eventually defeated. “We lobbied heavily to let them know the discrimination that might have taken place if that bill had passed,” he said. Dr. Wallingford added that optometry emerged as the leading authority on contact lenses during the extensive news coverage of the recent Fusarium keratitis outbreak.

“It was such an important clinical issue, and it showed that optometry and the AOA are the contact lens and cornea specialists,” he said. “The AOA became the primary spokesperson on this topic.”

The year 2005 was also marked by the beginnings of the Optometry 2020 Summits, which discussed the future of the optometric profession, Dr. Wallingford said.

Dr. Crooks said the AOA has become less of a presidential or administrative entity, and more like a business. “We’re not just implementing my goals, we’re working together to implement the organization’s goals,” he said.

The AOA plans to continue to focus on its Healthy Eyes, Healthy People program, as well as the InfantSee program, Dr. Crooks said. He added that the AOA strives to find was to perpetuate private practice.

“There are too many private practices that are not being passed on to our younger colleagues,” he said. “We’re going to put steps into play to perpetuate private practice.” To this end, Dr. Crooks said the AOA has appointed a project team, which is currently in its information-gathering phase.