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Way to Go!
At the tender age of eighteen, in mid-1977, I completed my compulsory military service. I took all the money I had in this world and hopped on a trusty LUXAIR Boeing 707 and embarked on my first overseas trip, out of Southern Africa. On landing in Luxembourg - after a rather hilarious flight of drunken youths and people sleeping in the aisles - I hopped on a bus to Amsterdam.
If, as I said in a recent column, that Vancouver was Auckland on steroids then Amsterdam must be Venice on acid.
In those heady post-hippy days, we in South Africa were in the midst of censorship and apartheid. Thus the freedom, culture and history in Amsterdam was an eye opening experience and never forgotten. It was also the beginning of my love of travel.
In Europe, and Amsterdam in particular, I learnt more about Nelson Mandela and the then recent murder of antiapartheid activist Steve Biko, than I’d ever been allowed in South Africa. They were both among many ‘banned’ people; no one was allowed to quote them, or publish their names or images.
Things have certainly changed since then.
NZ can proudly claim to have played a part in the termination of apartheid.
On that ’77 trip I purchased a VW Kombi and spent six months travelling 30,000 kilometres around Europe. I did double that in a self-built Leyland Sherpa campervan in ’84.
It was great to meet people of many cultures and see so many remarkable places, amazing architecture, art and history. I well recall seeing the first VW Golf, which is now celebrating its 35th anniversary with a special edition Golf GTi 35. I also met plenty of Kiwi’s on their OE.
We had a great time.
Amsterdam Revisited & the NCC
I’ve managed to get back to Amsterdam a number of times since. I was thus pleased when I was invited to present at the Netherlands Contact Lens Conference (NCC) near Veldhoven this past March and fitted in a few days of R&R in Amsterdam.
Although in its infancy, with this meeting only the fourth so far, NCC has now apparently become the largest contact lens meeting in the world. Many believe it is now the leading European meeting with delegates and speakers giving rave reviews. If you plan to be in Europe in Spring 2014, it’s worth attending. NCC takes place in a former Nunnery and this year attracted over 1,300 attendees per day, industry excluded. They put on a great show, with a mix of local and international speakers and a top class exhibition. The meeting stands out, as it is relatively apolitical, with very much a Dutch flavour. There are no CPD police, no forms to fill in nor any need to be scanned in or out of lectures.
People are there by choice, not coercion.
The content of the presentations was relevant and interesting with multiple streams and themes. Ortho-K, sclerals, RGPs, soft lenses, staining, solutions, myopia control, workshops, market research and more, were well covered. I saw and heard some top class presentations from a variety of academics and clinicians. Some talks were in Dutch but were often linked to English slides. Fluency in my second language Afrikaans, a Dutch derivative, also helps me understand a lot.
They also know how to have fun with singing, dancing, stage shows, magicians and masses of clapping delegates. Although I’d heard a number of the speakers and similar presentations at various meetings around the world, it never hurts to refresh. There’s always new information and new aspects covered.
Many of us are sick and tired of the onerous compliance that surrounds compulsory CPD. Some now only attend meetings, relevant or not, just to rack up the points required to retain registration. It’s also becoming a hassle for speakers who now have to do much more paperwork and form filling to satisfy the associated bureaucratic processes. For that reason a number of top speakers will no longer attend conferences unless the remuneration covers all the extra hassle.
One Day
Dutch practitioners proudly remain leaders in RGP prescribing – at around 20% of contact lenses fitted. On the other hand they are way behind in the prescribing of one-day disposables. Compared to say Japan or NZ - that have similar levels of RGP prescribing but many times more dailies - the Dutch are lagging. It’s also interesting that their near neighbours, the Danes, prescribe around six times more single-use lenses.
It was my job to convince them to up the ante using a mix of the evidence base and clinical experience. I also presented a workshop on clinical management of contact lens complications.
A great meeting all round.
Heel gezellig!
Amsterdam was great. On arrival I spent the first night at one of Amsterdam’s landmark buildings, the famous art deco American Hotel situated on the marvellous Leidse Plein, with a café and bar famous for being the haunt of writers, poets and celebrities for around a hundred years. It’s a cheap, fast and easy journey on the 197 Bus, directly from Schipol to the hotel door.
I managed to tuck into many of my old favourites like uitsmijters, haring, poffertjes, Gouda, and of course croquetten and ‘frites met’ at FEBO. The same places, cafés and haunts are still exactly where I first discovered them all those years ago.
Post-conference I spent three nights at Hotel Atlas, right on Vondel Park, with a great park view. I’ve stayed there a few times over the years. Surrounded by top shopping and entertainment areas adjacent to the museum district and the #2 tram, its location is ideal. I spent about three full days walking around the canals, from one end to the other, in ever narrowing rings while exploring the maze of quaint lanes. Use The Map App. I only rode the tram when I’d had enough, after seven hours or more of pavement pounding.
Great memories.
Downunder
Back in our neck of the woods the SRC is now the largest conference in Australasia; fuelled by the need for points to meet recently enacted Australian compulsory CPD. As in Holland, I’ll be presenting on clinical contact lens management as well as ocular surface management, a glimpse into the future of eye care, and am co-hosting a J&J Breakfast session, at the SRC. I also presented to a small group of visiting foreign ophthalmologists in April. That wraps up my speaking commitments for the first half of 2012.
I thus look forward to attending Snowvision, as a delegate, in August, catching up with mates and a few days après Snowvision in a ski-in, ski-out chalet at the fantastic Cardrona. I’ve got a few Aussies and Kiwi’s joining me.
I penned the bulk of this column from San Lameer on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal. It was lovely and warm with a sea temperature of 22°C. This was a pleasure as summer gave NZ a miss this year. Plenty of Mozambique prawns and a lekker braai each day has been good for the soul, as was a lack of broadband.
This trip I’ve done around 95 hours of travel in just over two weeks so am happy to be back home. A first class upgrade JHB-SYD, was a welcome surprise. With all this travelling I’ve reached ‘lifetime silver recognition’ that kicks in for the rest of my life should I lose my platinum status. Loyalty programmes make a frequent traveller’s life dramatically more tolerable when on the road.
That’s one drawback of living in NZ; it’s bloody far from most places but that’s also one of the main reasons we chose to live in NZ; far from the madding crowd.
We have a fantastic new practice in St Heliers so it was nice to get back to flash new rooms and catch up with family, friends and shoot some pool.
Wassup?
I saw some interesting prototypes of new corneal mapping systems at the NCC but it seems to me that the Medmont E300 topographer remains the best tool for corneal contact lens fitting. With scleral fitting, imaging the extra-limbal topography remains a challenge but progress is being made and some ‘models’ and rules of thumb are evolving. Sclerals ‘settle’ into the ocular surface so a number of experts propose aiming for around 400µ of clearance as they expect about 200µ of ‘settling in’ for a net of around 200µ clearance.
I have thus far resisted fitting modern gas-perm sclerals. My last one, a cosmetic scleral in PMMA, was fitted in the early 1990’s - but I am keeping an open mind. Essentially I rarely need to fit a scleral lens, generally preferring piggybacking, when indicated. For the occasional half-dozen or so cases a year that may require a scleral lens I am happy to refer to my colleagues. The same applies to Ortho-K and therapeutics: I’d rather be a specialist in what I am good at than dabble in the occasional case.
There are others who share this view.
Cool Tools
One of the most impressive things I saw at the NCC exhibition, was a high-tech, minimalist refracting system incorporating an ‘industrial’ look. Coming from DOMS in Germany, it includes an ultra-compact, uber-schnell electronic phoropter that can even be detached and suspended on cords with trial frame-like temples for a more natural posture. It also has a video system that uses corneal reflexes to compute half PDs and more. The chair and stand is amazing with a ’Scandinavian’ feel to the design.
Ganz cool!
I’d love to get my hands on one but sometimes feel I’m just as happy with a trusty Reichert Ultramatic Rx, manual phoropter which has remained the ‘gold standard’ over the past few decades.
