Ideal courses to attend at the AAO Annual Meeting on a budget

by Michael G. Haas, MD

The annual AAO meeting is a wonderful time to gather with colleagues, further your education and to pick up some CME credits. If you’ve been there before, you’ll have a good feel about the various courses you might be interested in attending. If this is your first time, the advance program guide can be rather daunting.

The first thing to do is to pick out your hotel. These fill up within hours to days, and if you wait long you will have difficulty finding a room that is reasonably priced. Get your room early to save money.

When considering courses to attend, you should remember a few things. Some courses or symposia are free and feature some great speakers and industry leaders. Some courses will have a lab session involved where you can further your surgical techniques. Once board certified, every 10 years you will need to fulfill your MOC (maintenance of certification). This requires an average of 30 category 1 CME credits yearly from an ACCME (Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education) approved organization. Eighty percent of these must be related to ophthalmology, and three hours/credits must be in ethics. The Annual AAO meeting is a great way to pick up your ethics credits.

I would recommend perusing through the program, and highlighting courses that pique your interest. Of note is that the courses preceded by a star represent ones that were rated in the top 10% from the previous year. These are almost guaranteed to be worth you time and money. Once you have highlighted your selections, you’ll need a spreadsheet to determine where potential conflicts may occur. Once done, you will hopefully have some backup courses should your top selection(s) be full.

If you are in residency/fellowship or in your first five years of practice, the YO (Young Ophthalmologist) program has some great topics. This includes a job fair, and courses discussing contract buy-ins and buy-outs, and other aspects of the business side of ophthalmology. This is highly recommended for young ophthalmologists, as it is geared toward your needs now.

As far as other courses in general, think about what is important to you. You won’t have to worry about subspecialty days unless of course you have a particular interest or training in those areas. Courses vary by sub-specialty and offer wonderful pearls for the general ophthalmologist as well. You may select other courses that range from coding advice to financial planning and marketing. The Breakfast with the Experts also gives you a chance to sit at a small table with a respected ophthalmologist, which gives you a forum to ask questions directly to an industry/ophthalmic leader. Take advantage of these.

Do not forget all the freebies offered. Again, many symposia are free and offer cutting-edge topics for discussion along with showing videos to help the discussion. These can be very informative, and the price is definitely right. The exhibit hall will have a huge number of booths by various vendors. In addition to seeing all of the latest and greatest, if you purchase anything during the meeting you will usually get some sort of discount. Free time in your schedule can be spent in the exhibit hall, and you will still be hard pressed to visit all of the booths.

Overall, for young ophthalmologists, definitely do not miss the YO program. The annual AAO meeting gives a great opportunity to have courses in the non-clinical aspects of medicine as well (coding, financial planning, marketing and even ethics). It will be hard to narrow down your list, and don’t forget the free symposia. Enjoy your time there, it is a fantastic week.