Mohammad Rafieetary, OD, FAAO, sat down with Times® Optometry’ Associate Editor Emily Kaiser to provide a brief overview of her presentation, “AMD Updates: Staying Abreast of Your Landscape,” which he co-presented with Jay Haynie, OD, FAAO, at the meeting of 2023 AOA Optometry in Washington, DC.
Video Transcript
Emily Kaiser, Associate Editor:
Hello everyone. My name is Emily Kaiser from Optometry Times and I sit down with Dr. Mohammad Rafieetary, who is presenting a course called “AMD Updates: Staying Abreast of Your Landscape”, at the optometry meeting, which is hosted by the AOA and held in Washington DC. Welcome Dr Rafieetary, thank you for taking the time.
Mohammad Rafietary, OD, FAAO:
Thanks, Emily. It’s good to be here. It’s always nice to chat with you about these presentations.
This conference on AMD (age-related macular degeneration), I’m really excited because my co-host and colleague is Dr. Jay Haynie. And I venture to say that Jay and I are the first retina ODs in the country, so we’ve been in this retinal space forever. And whenever I have the opportunity, which isn’t often, to be on the podium with Jay, I appreciate his knowledge of the subject and the camaraderie between the two of us.
So macular degeneration is one of those conditions that is common (and) in the day-to-day practice of an optometrist who sees adult patients, and it’s one of those conditions that unfortunately doesn’t go away. In fact we have a growing population of patients with Age Related Macular Degeneration, we need to put this condition on the radar and be vigilant as studies have shown that it often goes undiagnosed. And on the other hand, is often misdiagnosed.
There are a whole host of other macular degenerative diseases that are not necessarily age-related macular degeneration, but they have similar genotypic and phenotypic findings that make it confusing. And while some may think it’s trivial and academic, no, it’s not, because you need to know the different aspects of these diseases.
So Jay and I are going to introduce the background of age-related macular degeneration. There’s a lot of exciting things happening with the things that are in the pipeline: new therapies, new treatments and second generation treatments available for neovascular AMD, new treatment available for Geographic AMDthe other treatments in preparation that we are looking forward to.
So this is going to be an exciting conference; it’s Saturday, I believe from 3 to 5 pm and I hope our colleagues can attend this meeting so that we can learn from each other. You know, we would like to have a presence, an engagement for them—for our colleagues—to tell us what they see in their communities and how they are coping with these conditions. We often overlook the role of our colleagues performing low vision exams/rehabilitation in this patient population, so we need to have conversations about it.
Kaiser:
Yeah, absolutely. And what do you hope optometrists take away from your talk?
Rafietaire:
Well, first of all, for us to understand the benefits of continuing education. These meetings are for us to stay up to date. If those who are unaware of the upcoming new treatment, how to diagnose geographic atrophy, when to refer this patient to retina specialists – both neovascular AMD and geographic atrophy, to have conversations, to clarify some of these complexities, because AMD is a very complex disease. You know, we tried to simplify things, but it’s a very complex disease. So hopefully we will learn from each other.
Kaiser:
All right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me and I look forward to seeing you in DC.
Rafietaire:
Likewise; THANKS.
