New optometric surgery group accepting fellowship applications
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The newly formed American Academy of Optometric Medicine and Surgery is accepting candidates for fellowship, the group announced in a press release.
The AAOMS aims to serve as a uniform credentialing body that holds optometric surgeons to a standard higher than that of ophthalmology residents.
“This is the perfect time for the profession to have a credentialing board for optometrists who perform laser surgery and minor surgical procedures of the eye and ocular adnexa,” AAOMS President John A. McCall Jr., OD, FAAOMS, told Healio. “This new process will hold optometric surgeons to a higher standard than that of ophthalmology residents, to ensure the public that AAOMS fellows have adhered to the highest certified credentialing process in the nation to perform these procedures.”
Candidates will offer proof to the AAOMS credentialing committee of surgical training and successful completion of a specific number of procedures to obtain a certificate designating the optometric surgeon as a fellow of the AAOMS (FAAOMS).
“The founding board is a group of 12 optometric surgeons who are licensed in surgical states and routinely perform these procedures as a part of their practice,” McCall said.
The board is led by McCall, vice president Nate Lighthizer, OD, FAAOMS, and secretary-treasurer Dixon Golden, OD, FAAOMS.
McCall is a former American Optometric Association president. He and Golden have each been in private practice in Texas for 47 years and are adjunct professors of optometric medicine and surgery at the University of Houston College of Optometry. They are entering their 10th year of optometric surgical practice in Louisiana.
Lighthizer is a professor, associate dean, director of continuing education and chief of specialty care and surgery clinics at the Northeastern State University Oklahoma College of Optometry. He leads the advanced procedures, laser procedures and surgical procedures training course for optometrists in the U.S. and Canada.
To apply, visit FAAOMS.org.
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