It is a profound understatement to say that this has been a challenging year for everyone around the globe.  As an international organization we have seen the challenges faced by our fellow ocularists worldwide. Our goal as always is to provide the highest standard in discourse, continuing ocularist education, and collaborative research for and amongst our members and guests. Those of you who have had the opportunity to attend the meetings of the International Academy of Ocularistry have experienced the intimate collaborative roundtable discussions with direct discussion between the speaker and attendees that are the hallmark of our meetings.

  In considering whether to hold a meeting in this Covid environment we considered the needs of our members.  Inability to travel internationally to an in-person meeting, and technical issues caused by the geographic dispersion of our membership which spans almost every time zone were key areas of concern. More importantly we did not want to lose the collaborative, cooperative, and scholarly exchange of information and ideas that we have become accustomed to at the IAO meetings. We have determined that the best option for our membership will be to refrain from having a meeting this year and strive to provide the level of excellence that our members have become accustomed to at a physical meeting in 2022 returning to The Pendry Hotel in San Diego.

While it does not have an impact  for some of our international members, we also considered the needs of our members who require credits for recertification and/or continuing education.  We were very aware that fifty credits a year are required for recertification. As a result, we will be increasing the number of credits available at the 2022 meeting  in San Diego, California to ensure that the combination of our last meeting in San Diego 2020  and the 2022 meeting will provide the opportunity for at least 150 credits over the three-year period. One  extreme issue of concern for the Board was the economical impact of potential shared cost per certified attendee for credits due to the costs imposed by the certifying agency that are not scaled for smaller organizations. 

We look forward to an extraordinary meeting of the International Academy of Ocularistry At the Pendry Hotel in San Diego, California, USA in February 2022.  We are excited by the opportunity to meet with you to refresh, improve, expand knowledge and advance the  practice in the field of Ocularisty.

Sincerily,

Board of Trustees, International Academy of Ocularistry