Onward We Go

Shutting the door, finishing the chapter, turning the page on 2020—however you want to say goodbye to the past year—we have all been looking forward to 2021. As a profession, we navigated through the past 12 months to the best of our abilities using telemedicine, performing hybrid patient care, and obtaining education on virtual platforms. Many of these changes will carry over into 2021 and beyond. We at Modern Optometry feel fortunate to have amazing colleagues who have shared the ups and downs of 2020 with us—colleagues such as Walter Whitley, OD, MBA, FAAO, whom we are excited to now welcome as a Co-Chief Medical Editor.

Dr. Whitley is a nationally recognized educator, has written a multitude of articles in scientific journals and trade publications, and is an expert in fields ranging from ocular disease, surgical comanagement, and pharmaceuticals, to practice management topics. He was formerly a Co-Chief Medical Editor of Collaborative Eye and is the perfect addition to our team because of his passion for the medical mode of optometry and his thirst for advancing our profession.

In this new year, Modern Optometry will continue to provide relevant, modern, medically oriented eye care information for you, our readers, along with Collaborative Eye content. We will also continue to produce The MOD Pod, our podcast in which authors of selected articles from each issue read their articles, and our other podcast, To the Point, hosted by Leslie O’Dell, OD, FAAO, and Jaclyn Garlich, OD, FAAO, in addition to our digital series Collaborative Corner with Marc Bloomenstein, OD, FAAO, and Eye Care Insiders with Joseph Allen, OD, FAAO (all available at Eyetube.net). We also have some new things brewing, so stay tuned—we’ll keep you informed here. For now, let’s take a look at what we have in store for you within these pages.

January is Glaucoma Awareness Month, so it seemed fitting to focus the first issue of the new year on this silent thief of vision. COVID-19 has changed not only the way we operate our practices, but also how we care for our patients with glaucoma. At-home testing technologies for measuring IOP, performing visual fields, and acquiring images of the optic nerve are being explored and used to minimize the number of patients who enter our clinic doors.

Once a diagnosis of glaucoma has been made, current research and the ever-changing landscape of therapy options can create confusion about how best to treat the patient. Is the best option for first-line therapy a drop, a laser procedure, or a glaucoma drug delivery system? For patients with glaucoma who need surgical intervention, what is the best way to communicate with the surgeon, and what recommendations should be made to the patient? The authors who contributed to this edition of Modern Optometry will answer these questions and many others that pertain to the management of patients with glaucoma.

Thank you for taking a look at our first issue of 2021. We will continue our mission to be a relevant resource, providing information that is representative of the current and future state of our profession. In order to that, we rely on your feedback, so feel free to drop us a line at modernod@bmctoday.com and let us know how we’re doing. Until next time, stay safe and be well.