As you may know, last year, the American Retina Forum (ARF) became the official partner of New Retinal Physician. Our members lend their expertise in retinal disease management to the broader retina and ophthalmology communities. But our partnership does not end there.

Back in March, we introduced the first of what we hope will be many online CME symposia, “Clinical Conversations in Retina.” Our panel of up-and-coming leaders in the retina world, from both private practice and academia, provided practical retina-specific educational content for the younger retina specialist. In typical ARF style, we did not take ourselves too seriously and stood by our “no suits, no ties” policy. And, true to form, we gave equal time to presentation and discussion, using the presentation as a stimulus for a wider, collaborative discussion among the entire panel.

I would like to take a moment to thank the following faculty—Beth Richter, MD, PhD; Larry Puthenparambil, MD; Eduardo Uchiyama, MD; Zack Oakey, MD; Chirag Jhaveri, MD; and Gabriel Benitez, MD—and, of course my co-course director Hemang Pandya, MD. Without them, the virtual event would not have been as fun, interesting, or informative.

To recap: Dr. Richter started things off with “Age-Related Macular Degeneration—The Baby Boom: Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number,” in which she discussed how she approaches AMD (from dry to wet to masquerades) from a diagnostic and therapeutic approach. We all discussed different ways to approach the same case, and the audience was able to chime in with their thoughts, as they did with all of the presentations.

Next, Dr. Puthenparambil presented “Diabetic Retinopathy: I Got 99 Treatments, But a Vit Ain’t One,” discussing medical and laser treatments for diabetic retinopathy. After a short break, Dr. Uchiyama gave a very informative talk about uveitis for the retina specialist, “Common Mistakes in the Management of Uveitis and How to Avoid Them.” Dr. Oakey brought the rare/confusing cases in “Toxic Maculopathies: A Masquerade Party.” I must admit, I did not guess any of them correctly! It’s good to be reminded that we don’t know everything.

Next, I presented on my favorite topic, “Surgical Retina: Diabetic Vitrectomy—Suga Suga, How You Get So High?” followed by Dr. Pandya’s surgical discussion, “You’re A Little Late, I’m Already Torn….”

Dr. Jhaveri brought in a very timely topic of a surgical technique that has fallen out of favor, but is seeing a resurgence with Port Delivery Systems to install a depot of medication for the constant treatment of retinal disease, in particular, exudative macular degeneration.

Dr. Benitez—president of the in-person ARF National Meeting scheduled to take place in Puerto Rico in 2022—concluded and presented “#ItsComplicated: Post-Surgical Complications.”

We had prizes for participants who were the most engaged in the meeting. And, before each break, we had our trivia master, attorney Iñaki Irigoyen, ask some very hard questions. We all did very poorly, but the two winners—Nathan Cutler, MD, and Alex Barash, MD—won free registration to the 2022 meeting in Puerto Rico.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our online symposium. And I hope to see you in Puerto Rico in 2022 (details coming soon). NRP

DR. MEHTA is vice president of the American Retina Forum and clinical associate professor of ophthalmology and retina division fellowship director, vitreoretinal surgery at the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, University of California, Irvine.