If you were at the AOA meeting this year you know that the Opening General Session on Thursday morning was devoted to “Your World in 3D” and centered on the entertainment industry. You also received a print copy of Public Health Report on 3D in the classroom which is available as a download at 3deyehealth.org. There were lectures on stereo 3D (S3D) at the meeting by Drs. Maino, Earley, Barry, and me, but the showstopper was the this morning’s 3 hour session featuring a stereo imaging system by TrueVision 3D surgical systems that allows heads-up eye surgery.
Now it’s one thing for “BV people” like Drs. Maino, Earley, Barry and me to get excited about S3D. It’s quite another when “disease people” get pumped about it. That was the tenor of the first part of this morning’s presentation. AOA’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Michael Duenas, presented a scenario where at some point potential Optometry students would have stereoscopic vision as one of the entrance requirements. Dr. Duenas called on a third year student from UMSL in the audience to demonstrate the use of heads-up slit lamp examination with a specially adapted Haag-Streit biomicroscope equipped with a stereo camera and projection. The examiner can examine the patient in stereo while wearing 3D glasses and looking at a straight-ahead monitor. Seeing detail in stereoscopic three dimensions significantly aids analysis and photodocumentation. Assuming, that is, the examiner has normal binocular vision – which is where BV people come into the picture again.
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