Post Congress Report
"May this event be the launch of many more to come!"
This feedback from a delegate sums up many of the comments on evaluation forms from the SightLife Global Congress and Cornea Transplant Congress held June 15-17, 2009 in Seattle.
Surgeons and eye banking professionals from 6 continents and 24 nations gathered to develop a global plan to cure unnecessary cornea blindness. Nearly 70 delegates participated in work sessions structured to pull out the best information and ideas available on how to succeed in global eye banking and cornea transplantation. The sessions were structured to facilitate collaboration between eye banking professionals and cornea surgeons.
Initial feedback indicates considerable enthusiasm among the delegates to continue this effort. 73% percent of the delegates completed evaluations with 94% positive answers to questions about whether the Congress met their expectations and achieved its goals. One comment shared below summed up the hopes of many:
"Extraordinary achievement! This was the most unique developmental meeting I have ever attended with the greatest exchange of ideas. Hopefully, it has laid the groundwork for future development."
SightLife Chief Global Officer Tim Schottman and Global Programs Director Jeremy Shuman will head follow-up work on the conference. Their task: Distill ideas and observations from 70 accomplished delegates into a summary that provides the best possible platform to build from. They have given themselves a deadline of July 20 for providing delegates who attended the congress with this summary, along with recommendations for a communications network to keep things moving forward.
View more photos from the meeting.
Download the conference agenda and a list of speakers and moderators.
Download the full congress program and schedule
Watch a video of KOMO4 News coverage of a SightLife press conference held in conjunction with the conference. Warning. This link to KOMO4's website begins with a basketball advertisement.