The International Council of Ophthalmology's International Task Force on Coordination and Education
2008, Volume 1, Number 2 53 The International Council of Ophthalmology's (ICO) mission is to ... work with ophthalmologic societies, ophthalmologists and others to enhance ophthalmic education and the provision of eye care in order to preserve and protect vision for all people worldwide. Great disparity exists globally as to resource avail-ability for education, structure of residency training, and assessment of resident performance. With this in mind the ICO (with the assistance and support of Drs. Bradley Straatsma and Bruce Spivey) created the In-ternational Task Force on Coordination and Education of Program Directors of Ophthalmology Residencies. Members of the Task Force include Bradley Straatsma, MD, JD (USA), Karl Golnik, MD, MEd (USA), Anthony Arnold, MD (USA), Pinar Aydin, MD (Turkey), Marko Hawlina, MD (Slovenia), An-drew Lee, MD (USA), Paulo Augusto Mello, MD (Brazil), Tetsuro Oshika, MD (Japan) and Enrique Graue Weichers, MD (Mexico). The Task Force's goal is to improve the educational abilities of program directors and educational leaders, have these individuals bring back these concepts to their programs and thus enhance resident education on a global scale. This task force has three main ob-jectives: 1. Organization, implementation, faculty recruit-ment, and continued improvement of an ICO spon-sored Program Director's Meeting. 2. Provide other shorter meetings, symposia, and educational content at Supra-national Congresses. 3. Continually explore innovative approaches to global ophthalmology program director education. The ICO Program Director's Meeting is a two day conference that emphasizes curriculum development, improving teaching skills and techniques of resident assessment. A variety of teaching methods are em-ployed including traditional didactic lecture, small group breakout sessions and large group discussion. These teaching methods require limiting participants to about 50 per meeting. Simultaneous translation is often required. Endorsement by the American Acad-emy of Ophthalmology (AAO), Association of Uni-versity Professors in Ophthalmology (AUPO), the Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology (PAAO), and other international organizations has lent credibility to these meetings. Endorsement by the host country's national ophthalmology society is also crucial for success. The meeting's Chairperson and a local co-Chair work together to assess the needs of the specific region's participants to assure relevance of the material pre-sented. To facilitate camaraderie and enhance the pos-sibility of future PD collaboration, a dinner is held for all participants on the first night of the meeting. Thus far, ICO Program Director's Meetings have oc-curred in Mexico, Peru, Egypt, Pakistan, Argentina, and Brazil. Meetings are scheduled for Slovenia and Ethiopia in 2008 in addition to a follow-up meeting in The International Council of Ophthalmology's International Task Force on Coordination and Education of Program Directors of Ophthalmology Residencies Karl C. Golnik, MD, MEd 1* 1 Program Director, Professor of Ophthalmology and Neurosurgery, The University of Cincinnati, The Cincinnati Eye Insti-tute, Cincinnati, OH * Corresponding Author & e-mail: kgolnik@fuse.net Accepted for publication October 19, 2008 2008; 1:53-54 Available via open-access on the web at http://www.academic-ophthalmology.com The author(s) have no personal financial interest in any of the products or technologies cited herein. 2008