To the Editor:

I thoroughly enjoyed Mike Lambert's piece about the beginnings of the Vail Vitrectomy Meeting in the January/February issue of Retina Today. It was well written and the pictures and historical documents were wonderful. It was a “board-certified trip” down memory lane for those of us who lived through that era and had the privilege of personally knowing this esteemed group of vitreous surgery pioneers.

For the sake of historical accuracy, however, there is one small addition that should be made. In his description of the format, Dr. Lambert states that, “Participation would be by invitation only to limit the size of the audience and to facilitate lively discussion and exchange of ideas.” I have no doubt that was true, but there was a more important reason that the list of invitees was so small. In my opinion, there was a belief among some of the forefathers of vitreous surgery that the technology should be closely guarded and limited to academic centers and a small number of select retina specialists. Stated more bluntly, I believe that the pioneers in the field were not anxious to release this incredible, sight-saving technology to the practicing retina specialist.

Although limiting the dissemination of medical knowledge seems anachronistic to us today, it definitely existed in vitreoretinal surgery in the early 1970s. It was in direct reaction to the exclusive nature of the Vail Vitrectomy Meeting and other societies of the period that Allen Z. Verne, MD, Roy A. Levit, MD, and I banded together to create a more open and egalitarian alternative. Accordingly, the Vitreous Society (now the American Society of Retina Specialists [ASRS]) was formed to ensure that practicing retina specialists would always have access to the information and technology necessary to give all of our patients the highest level of care. The net result is that thousands of private practitioners and academic retina doctors around the world now work together to improve both communication and collegiality in our field. Over the past 30 years, the most important lessons we learned were that “respect for our colleagues never goes out of style,” and that “information wants to be free!”

Sincerely,
Jerald A. Bovino MD, FACS
Aspen, CO

Author Reply

Dear Dr. Bovino,

Thanks for your kind comments about my article on the Vail Vitrectomy meeting. In the interest of getting history correct, I think you have confused the Vail Vitrectomy meeting with the Retina Society. The Vitreous Society (ASRS), a great organization open to all vitreoretinal specialists, was formed in response to the Retina Society, which has academic requirements for membership after nomination including parameters such as number of published papers and academic status. The Vail Vitrectomy meeting has never had a fixed membership, and has always included not only those in academic centers, but also innovative private practice vitreoretinal specialists, such as Steve Charles, MD, international physicians, and even physicians in the military (me). Robert Machemer, MD, also created the Duke Vitrectomy Course, which was and still is open to anyone—up to the limits of the venue. In fact, in 1982 when the Vitreous Society was founded (and I was his fellow), Dr. Machemer said that he felt that there should be 1 large organization inclusive of all vitreoretinal specialists.

I, as do we all, appreciate all you, along with your colleagues Dr. Levit and Dr. Verne, have done to create the ASRS. Perhaps you would be interested in contributing an article to Retina Today discussing how the Vitreous Society was created and how important the organization has become to our subspecialty. I believe strongly that we need to document the history of our specialty before we all are gone.

Thank you for your comments, H. Michael Lambert, MD, FACS
Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology
Colonel USAF (Ret)
Retina and Vitreous of Texas
Austin/Houston, Texas