Lisa Nijm, MD, previews Real World Ophthalmology’s upcoming virtual event

Lisa Nijm, MD, JD, founder and program director for Real World Ophthalmology, gives a preview of the upcoming virtual event, “Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner.” Register for the event now at www.realworldophthalmology.com/tickets.

Question:

What are the highlights and key takeaways from the “Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner” event?

Lisa Nijm, MD, JD:

The key highlights that I hope will spark your attention to attend are, first of all, we just have incredible faculty, and the education is just amazing. We literally have world-class faculty that lecture across the globe coming to give their time and share their pearls of wisdom, specifically for young ophthalmologists who are still in residency and fellowship training through the first 10 years of practice.

We do this through 10 unique educational sessions that are designed with you in mind, thinking about the things that I wish I knew sooner as a seasoned ophthalmologist. We go from everything from the ambassadors, from the major specialty societies, so AGS, Cornea Society, ASRS. We have 7 different ones representing all the major specialties.

They kick off the meeting with a really wonderful panel of the diagnoses not to miss and clinical cases that they think are challenging, so to give you their clinical pearls of wisdom and then to discuss aspects of choosing that specialty as a fellowship as well as getting involved in their respective specialty societies.

We follow that up with alternating practical sessions like finding a job and contract negotiations and essentials of knowing a private equity position as well as challenging clinical cases, surgical pearls, and we do it all in a very engaging format. This year, the theme of the meeting is “Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner: The Superhero Edition.” We’ve watched a lot of superheroes, fictionally. We’re bringing you real life ophthalmology superheroes.

Question:

What is the inspiration behind the theme for the event?

Lisa Nijm, MD, JD:

The inspiration behind the theme for this particular version of “Top 10 Things That I Wish I Knew Sooner: The Superhero Edition” is really that we just admire the ophthalmologists who come and teach at Real World Ophthalmology so much.

We have incredible keynote speakers. Dr. Mark Mannis has been the chair at UC Davis and a world renowned cornea specialist is going to be one of the keynote speakers, and Dr. Andy Lee, who also needs no introduction; he has won the teaching award at literally every institution that he’s been at. They are accompanied by 65 incredible faculty, both from academics, private practice in the US, outside the US, who are really coming to share their knowledge, and they are our superheroes.

We joke if you look at the agenda, there’s all kinds of references, tongue-in-cheek, to the superheroes we go watch in the theaters, but really they’re our everyday superheroes, our ophthalmology superheroes, and we wanted a chance for them to share their knowledge on clinical aspects, new clinical innovations from new lenses, new medications for our patients, different technologies that are now available, really bringing curated content that is packaged so that you can just watch and learn having all the pearls and all the tips right there, as well as joining your colleagues in active conversation in our chat and having some fun for the different contests that we have on the virtual platform as well as through our social media contest.

Question:

What do you hope the next generation of ophthalmologists take away from the meeting?

Lisa Nijm, MD, JD:

What we hope in putting on this meeting, I mean, the whole purpose behind Real World Ophthalmology is we are designed by physicians for physicians, and we are here to hopefully help ease the path of the people coming after us. You don’t learn everything in residency. I know, I hate to break it to people, but there are a lot of real life lessons that you have to learn and you do learn as you enter into practice and even in the first 5, 10 years of practice.

But the truth is that what we’ve done here is created a community that physicians can turn to each other and help each other with these lessons that we wish somebody had talked us about sooner. We have different sessions on the business aspects of ophthalmology, everything from coding and billing to starting your own practice. We have sessions on dealing with burnout and learning how to have a surgical mindset and figuring out what do you really say to patients? What do you say to patients who come and tell you that they want a procedure that it turns out that they’re not the best candidate for or that they look at you and say, “Hmm, you don’t look old enough to do my surgery”?

We have those difficult conversations and we want to give … Again, you can learn this on your own, but it’s so much easier when somebody who’s been through it gives you a heads-up on what to look for, curates the pearls, puts it together for you so that hopefully we can ease your path moving forward and give you a better start, a better time to be able to take care of your patients.

Question:

Is there anything you’d like to add that we haven’t covered?

Lisa Nijm, MD, JD:

I think the other thing that we do that’s fantastic is we also give out 8 awards that honor young ophthalmologists for their accomplishments in their early career. It’s really been so gratifying to see these rising stars get recognized by their peers, by their mentors, by their staff in private practice and in academics, because just when people think that they’re doing all this work and no one is noticing, we’re able to come in there and give them an award, it really highlights and recognizes the great contributions that they’re making for their patients, for their practices, and for the profession.

We’re going to follow up this virtual meeting with … We’ll honor them on Saturday, September 28 at the meeting, as well as at our signature reception at Academy on Friday, October 18 called Real World After Dark. It’s from 8 to 10 PM. We’ve got a load of exciting activities there. It’s going to be at the top of the W Hotel on Lakeshore, the 33rd floor. It is absolutely gorgeous.

As a little bonus, we’ve created a Chicago map and a Chicago experience, and if you complete the map, you had entered it into our raffle, and the first prize in the raffle is actually a free weekend stay at the W on Lakeshore of your choice. We definitely want all the young ophthalmologists to be there. If you’re in Chicago and hopefully attending Academy, we would love to see you there.