Board Certification--A Lesson in Staying Connected

Board Certification—A Lesson in Staying Connected

As I mentioned at our MOA convention in November, we have now moved past the days of websites, and e-mail to more powerful networking engines like Facebook, Second Life, and Tele-Town Hall. My new MOA Viewpoint Blog will be the perfect forum to present and answer questions about the Board Certification issue. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the GBOS meeting last week where there were apparently quite a few questions about the Board Certification project. I will give you a summary of the issue here, but encourage you to post questions to this blog if you have any. We will discuss this at many meetings over the next year, so you will have plenty of time to ask questions. The bottom line is that there was a Joint Board Certification Project Team (JBCPT) set up around the time of the Northeast meeting at Vision Expo in March of 2007. The JBCPT was composed of members of approximately six organizations, i.e. AAO, AOA, ARBO, NBEO, etc. So it is not an AOA project or is it even led by AOA. Right now the JBCPT is in an exploratory or information gathering stage. They do not have a proposal, or anything to present at this time. They have been asked to give us more specifics by September 2008, and are understandably concerned about delivering incomplete, inaccurate info. They probably will not have a formal proposal for us to discuss before the beginning of 2009. At our MOA Convention in Baltimore David Cockrell from the AOA spoke about the issue at some length during our Sunday luncheon. AOA representative Randy Brooks has been very accessible to discuss the issue at numerous meetings. The message from the JBCPT is that the issue of Board certification is completely different from the ABOP issue that almost divided the profession during the AOA Congress in Las Vegas, June 2000. I remember traveling to the meeting with Tim Madgar and Mike Sless. As we entered the House of Delegates the debate was cancelled and the ABOP issue was completely dropped.

I know the JBCPT is doing their research. They have a meeting soon with the Board of Family Medicine. I would advise all MOA members to post to this blog if you have questions. Also, I and many of the MOA Board members will be available at meetings to answer questions. Our AOA rep will be responsive to any concerns or questions we have. I know that it is problematic that in optometry we have so many organizations and causes that require our time and money, and I know that this is a very emotional issue. I am aware of some of the online petitions against Board Certification. Remember that we are the only specialty profession without any type of Board Certification process. We do not know if this may be for all practicing OD’s or a small subset of the profession, e.g. those who wish to be certified in Low Vision. Over the next few years there will be major changes to healthcare in the USA, along with changes in Medicare, pay for performance, and mandatory use of electronic medical records. Indeed the landscape is changing rapidly. I was at all three 2020 Summits, and there was definitely a desire to demonstrate to the public continued competency which is very different from our state licenses and national boards which are meant to measure entry level competence. I would caution everyone not to jump to conclusions until we have something tangible to discuss. I do not have an opinion on the issue at this time. I do have several concerns as I am sure everyone does. However, it does not look good for optometry if we are always making emotional responses, and are not willing to listen to new proposals. I would encourage everyone to read the past AOA news especially Jack Terry’s response to a question and Karen Riccio from Ohio’s letter to the editor:

Please see: http://www.aoanews.org/documents/AOANews_Mar242008.pdf

Again please post to this blog if you have questions. If I do not know the answer I will find out for you.

Thomas A. Wong, O.D.
President Maryland Optometric Association

2008 AOA Advocacy meeting in DC, Wednesday April 9, 2008

I am very thankful for this being the 4th year that I have attended this conference, because given the morning I had...I probably would have gone straight home if it had been my first year! Many of you know I am in the midst of relocating my office across the street from my current office. Because of this, and the fact that we are at the stage when things are crazy, and I am constantly on the phone with my architect and builder- I made the decision to take the Marc from Baltimore and then transfer to the Metro to arrive at the JW Marriott this morning as opposed to booking a hotel. Well, taking the 5:51AM Marc to transfer to the Metro went fine, until... Upon boarding the Metro, my bag got stuck in the automatic doors! I struggled with the bag and the doors with visions of being sucked out of the Metro train because I would never let go of my bag...Finally a really nice lady showed me how to push on the doors to release them and saved my bag (and me). Bad enough right? Well there is more to this crazy morning! After arriving at Metro Center, I got lost trying to find my way to F street! While rushing around trying to find the right exit, I walked by a vision-impaired gentleman who was in the process of unfolding his white cane. Can you guess what happened next?...Yes, my leg inadvertenly kicked his cane out of his hand while he snapped it open just as I was walking by...of course I stopped and gave him back his cane, apologized, spent about 5 minutes asking him if there was anything else I could do to help him...But perserverence pays off. I made it to our meeting at the JW Marriott with 5 minutes to spare! Anyway, my point with this story is getting involved in AOA advocacy is not difficult. In fact the AOA breakfast meeting and all of our meetings with our legislators went very smoothly. In my case it is the public transportation that proved to be difficult! Thank you to Valerie Seligson, and Tom Wong for attending the breakfast. We had the largest ever attendance with 500 OD's plus 104 students. I also want to thank Beverly Miller and Gemini Aurillo who went with me to each of our meetings today with our legislative representatives. We helped to educate our elected officials on the issues that affect our patients and our practices. I am looking forward to our AOA Advocacy Conference next year! I look forward to many more of our Maryland OD's to attend! Save the Date! June 22-24, 2009 in Washington DC for our next Advocacy Conference.

Tracie King, O.D.
2nd Vice-President Maryland Optometric Association

Joint Wilmer/JHU CE Program

It started as a brisk morning as I drove into Baltimore,you could tell Oriole Park was getting ready for opening day. As I arrived at Wilmer I was pleasantly surprised that the garage I wanted to park in was FREE..yeah.As I arrived and checked in at 8:30 am I was amazed at the venders all set up and ready to go. Generally on a Sunday only CE there are no vendors. Then I walked into the lecture hall and had a flashback, just like school an amphitheater with pop up writing desks. Dr. Elliott Myrowitz did an outstanding job of organizing the event. It was a fast paced, high quality and interactive event. Most speakers went between 20-30 minutes with every section followed by a question and answer period. This was a big hit. Most of the docs who spoke were Wilmer Faculty, Mike Sless (former prez of MOA) had some humurous slides that got a laugh out of everyone.Overall a great event, as a member of the board I will try to encourage this type of CE in the future and hope to see many more of you at these types of events. I think this was a record turnout.

John Burns, O.D.

First Vice-President Maryland Optometric Association