AOA: The Active Ophthalmic Authority on 3D Vision

As blogged about last week, the American Optometric Association in conjunction with the 3D @ Home Consortium held a special clinical symposium on 3D at the SUNY College of Optometry yesterday.  At the conclusion a special announcement was made regarding a memorandum of understanding between the two organizations.

There are many exciting points in the PR Newswire Release concerning the memorandum of understanding, but I am particularly enthused about these five potential areas of collaboration:

1) enhanced public and professional communication

2) development and design of 3D/S3D based vision risk assessment tools

3) development and design of applied therapies

4) providing new integrated efforts for quality improvement and evaluation

5) improved public health and vision and eye health.

James Sheedy, O.D., Ph.D., Director of the Vision Performance Institute at Pacific University’s College of Optometry does a marvelous job of laying out some of the issues involved in a video embedded in the newswire release.   Great to see Dr. Sheedy and the AOA continuing with the theme of The 3Ds of 3D viewing that Dr. Dominick Maino and I coined last year.  In keeping with the original vision of Dr. Bill Sharpton of Georgia, the memorandum should move us closer to the point where 3D movies and other 3D technologies come with a succinct consumer advisory.   Perhaps even something as basic as  If you’re having difficulty or discomfort with 3D viewing, see your Doctor of Optometry. Our colleague and friend Dr. Rochelle Mozlin attended the symposium, and has added some pertinent thoughts in her blog for COVD.

Kudos to Dr. Sheedy, Dr. Michael Duenas, Dr. Barry Barresi, Stephen Wasserman, Susan Thomas and all those within the AOA involved in Communications and Public Health who have positioned Optometrists as the active ophthalmic authorities on 3D vision issues.

– Leonard J. Press, O.D., FCOVD, FAAO