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Well, my family is home safe from PDX. We had a miserable time because the kids were sick (at both ends) and we didn’t get to see all of our friends. On the plus side the people we saw were great and the CE was good. On Saturday I especially enjoyed Dr. Smythe’s class on GP contact lens fitting considerations. She mentioned how it’s hard to get docs to come to contact lens lectures anymore. (I guess there’s not as much money in CLs.)

There was not only a free lunch but also a free breakfast on Saturday. I talked with more exhibitors. The best conversations I had were with other optometrists. None of them were willing to do a podcast with me, so I’ll loosely paraphrase. Dr. Adam Dayley in Orofino, ID has taken a dying practice and started to turn it around. Dr. Dayley graduated with me 2 years ago. He found a diamond in the rough. Apparently, one of the reasons the practice hadn’t been doing so well was that the Dr. was not TPA certified! Ouch. Think of all the missed opportunities if you can’t even Rx drugs for eye conditions! Adam has a lot of sage advice for the new O.D., and I wish he had a website I could link to.

Another couple of new ODs out there, making the grade on their own: Chris Johnson and Jon Ashbaker. Chris actually used the Williams Consulting Group and told me, “What ever they say, just do it. Even if you don’t understand it, just do it.”
That’s saying something from Chris because he’s a smart person that has to understand everything- figure it all out in his head.
I talked with Jon a lot about coding and billing. He has some pretty good office forms that he graciously showed me.

One thing, doctors. When I was searching for your office website, I had to do a lot of searching. Ideally, I should just be able to type in your first and last name (or your practice name if I know it) and city and state, and bam, I should see your practice at the top of the list. Your web sites? Nowhere to be found. I had to search through VSP’s doctor locator or eyefinity. Let’s get some web search savvy!

Back to GWCO, they cater to the coffee drinkers. There is always a free cup of joe in the foyer, but what about the hot cocoa drinkers! It would have been so easy to have hot water and packets of cocoa. I particulary enjoy Stephen’s gourmet hot cocoa. (hint hint ;)) My tuition money went to pay for coffee I would never drink.

Anyway, my final thoughts on GWCO. It’s hard to blog an optometry conference. I heard Adam say they are all pretty much the same, and he’s right. I will go on to say that they shouldn’t require new grads to have CE for 2-3 years after graduation since things change relatively slowly. I also dissagree with most state boards limiting the amount of CEs one can obtain via correspondence (internet, mail). I can get a whole degree online, so why can’t I get most of my CE’s online? After blowing $1000 in tuition, travel, room, and food, I’m a little disappointed in what I’ve come away with. On the whole a good experience, but worth the monetary price? I don’t know. I was happy to see that the president of the AOA came, but I’m pretty sure there were less people in attendance this year than last year. I don’t know if GWCO releases their numbers.

GWCO does well in Portland, but since it is the Great Western Council of Optometry, will they ever hold the meeting in another state? I’d like to see it held in Seattle, Boise, or (Heaven Forbid) Salt Lake City. Since the meeting has been held in Portland every year in recent memory, I’m sure they’ve come to some consensus on why it has to be in Portland every year. I’d just like to see the arguments. If it’s all about money, then why do any of the conventions change venues from year to year? I’m sure it has to do with the PUCO support of the whole thing. They rely on PUCO interns to help with the doors. They rely on many of the speakers being from PUCO. It’s a great meeting, but it’s clearly an Oregon meeting. I like visiting Oregon, so I don’t hold any grudges.

GWCO 2005 overall Grade: B
That’s just me. What’s your opinion?

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I forgot to mention yesterday that to get CE credit, they have you wear a name badge with a bar code on it which is scanned with a red laser deal with a VERY loud beep. Isn’t there a silent mode on those things or at least a volume dial? Lining up to “get scanned” feels like a violation somehow. It feels wrong. Maybe I watch too many movies.

To add insult to injury, you’ve also got to get a paper stamped for your personal records. Over at the AAO meeting, they usually have you swipe a card. You do it yourself. No violation feeling. They send you a printout a week later with the CE events you swiped in and out of. I hope GWCO is transitioning out of the paper stamping. I also have this ARBO card. How come I’m not swiping it instead of getting scanned like some kind of cattle?

Anyway, it was another great day of CEs at GWCO. The conference is large enough to run at least 3 classes at a time for the ODs and then another for the para-optometrics. I stayed up waaaay to late last night blogging, so I was a little tired for the first two classes. The first class by Dr. Teplick kept me awake, but the second class I took put me to sleep. While it was very interesting content, taught by a very knowledgeable doctor, my tiredness combined with the speaker’s near monotone voice put me down. One hour into it I realized that it could be considered unethical to take CE credit for a class I slept through, so I exited and left my paper with the door attendant. The main floor of the Oregon Convention Center has a surprising lack of seating, but the third floor administrative area has an endless row of couches along a hallway. Since it was vacant, I lay down for one hour of deep sleep. I awoke to find a security guard perched two couches down. I secretly wonder if he was sent there to monitor me. I have delusions that someone called down to security and said, “There’s some stranger laying down on a couch up here, clutching to a backpack. He looks suspicious.”
Of course, this would be movie plot security which I hope the OCC security team doesn’t subscribe to (unlike the NYC subway incident). When I got up and headed to the elevator, the security guard asked, “Have a nice nap?”
“Yah, it was great.”
“Sometimes a power nap is all you need to get refreshed.”
“Yah.”

So, I’m pretty sure he was just sitting there by coincidence, but I can’t help but imagine these movie plot scenarios where some innocent napper is mistaken for a “person of interest.” This thought process is what happens when you have too much time to yourself.

Anyway, the exhibit hall opened today. While it was pretty big, it wasn’t really big. I’m sure there would be more vendors if they weren’t all recovering from partying too hard at Optowest (Las Vegas) one month ago. I’ve taken an interest in PIMS/EMR software. There are just three that I noticed at GWCO: Maximeyes, Compulink, and OfficeMate. I couldn’t speak to the OfficeMate people because they were always slammed with people around their booth. There were more people at OfficeMate than the Optomap booth!

Now comes my next gripe of the day. When I’m pricing things like equipment and PIMS/EHR software, how come the pricing schema is so complicated? How come they have to get back with me and send me a quote over the e-mail? How come there is a regular price, plus add-on module prices, plus maintenance pricing, plus support/training pricing, plus convention discount, plus new practitioner discount. . . And what’s the deal with a “quote.” Quoting a price makes it sound like I could have gotten a better deal if I were someone else, like my competition down the street. If they would just immediately state a price that everyone pays, I wouldn’t feel like I was getting played.

Can you imagine if everyone had to put up with this garbage to buy a computer or palm pilot? I guess we already kind of do with buying a car, but I wish our ophthalmic industry model was more like consumer electronics: open access to pricing, lots of independent reviews available from multiple sources so we can research which products to buy (for example, which topographer or AutoK/Rx do I buy? There are so many out there, but so little reviews). When I access ophthalmic distributer websites, they don’t list prices. Why not? Do they expect me to call every firm and get a price quote? Save me some time and publish the prices! Of course, they might contend, we are entering a relationship with you when you buy something from us. Well, I want a product, not a relationship! I don’t want to get soaked because I’m a business instead of a consumer. Just because I’m a business doesn’t mean I’m made of money.

The bank I used to finance our minivan has a service where they’ll call to every dealer nearby and haggle and get us the lowest price on the car we want. Websites out there get you the cheapest price guaranteed for hotels and flights. I propose someone out there start a service like this for the ophthalmic industry. Gimme the cheapest price. Why should I pay more than necessary?

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Like I planned, this morning I caught the bus to the transit center to the MAX to the Oregon Convention Center. It took 50 minutes, but I felt pretty cool because I thought I blended right in. I was wearing my blue water-resistant jacket and an mp3 player around my neck and earphones. I should have been listening to Jon Young, MD’s “As Seen from Here” podcast; however, I was listening to music since I was about to get a lot of CE credits live.

This year all of the GWCO classes are in the OCC (last year the first and last day was in the Double Tree hotel). The AOA president, Dr. Richard Wallingford, OD, was here and spoke a couple times. The big news is the whole InfantSee program and a new PR plan being implemented by a major PR company. To pay for it, all the AOA dues went up by $60 across the board. Also, there will be a monthly e-newsletter updating us on what is happening in Washington D.C. President Wallingford said the AOA has on file about 16,000 e-mail addresses.

When will people start catching on to RSS? The AOA news site would be ideal for RSS feeds, but I suppose they make you log in to read it because it’s a benefit only for registered members. Since they are putting the AOA Washington Update on the e-mail, they should expect it to become public domain through everyone forwarding it on to a (heaven forbid) non dues paying optometrist. So why bother with the E-mail? Just use RSS already!

Dr. Wallingford mentioned there are roughly 400 optometrists effected by the recent hurricanes. A disaster relief fund has been established with VSP, Essilor, and Luxottica leading the donations.

The morning CE was great. The doctor talking about coding sure knows how to side step a question. He should be a politician. I took a class from him later in the afternoon about medical records, and I’ll be he danced around more questions than he answered, yet you gotta love the guy. His Wisconsin accent and demeanor make him endearing. He should really be a politician. He could do the Patomic two step in his sleep!

I went to the PUCO alumni lunch, and wow there was a lot to cover. First, let me say the food was unusually good. They sprung for a very good grilled chicken over a nice salad with bread and cake.

Then they barraged us with a whole lot of awards and big announcements. Among the awards were:

GWCO scholarship: Kelsie Cutler
Award of Appreciation: Leland Carr
PUCO Alumni Service Award: Pat Cummins

Big Huge News:
Lee Carr is leaving his position as Dean of PUCO. Why? The rumor I heard was that he wasn’t “happy.” What does that mean? The rumor wasn’t very specific. I don’t know if health problems played into his decision either. I do recollect something he said in his accepting of his award, “Don’t accept 2nd best. Use your voices to make sure they do this job right.” I think he was referring to the next big news.
PUCO was forced to close their Northeast clinic and they will also be closing their Southeast clinic. What they’re going to do is open a clinic inside the planned Pacific University Health Professions Campus which will be in Hillsboro near Tuality Hospital and touching the MAX line. Phase 1 building (~4 years from now) will include ~5 optometry lanes on the ground floor and an optical. Phase 2 (~15-19 years down the road) will have a huge optometry clinic. Virginia Garcia will also be in Phase 1 (I mention it because I translated at VG).

Lots of miscellaneous news. Dr. Steve Cool retired. Tawna Roberts is on PUCO staff. Dr. Casser says that PUCO’s accreditation is up for re-evaluation in fall 2006. It is based on curriculum, admission criteria, and academic standards. Here’s a hint, PUCO. If you want your ABEO results to get better, don’t let the students surf the web during class! Some current students told me some teachers are cracking down on that (it’s about time). Really, board scores used to be good at PUCO until my class came along. We were the first entering students to get high speed internet available in the classrooms. It was supposed to revolutionize teaching, but it just made us all better at surfing the web. (Anyone remember Elf Bowling, Motocross Madness, Age of Empires?) Sheesh.

More big news is PUCO got some funding to equip every single exam lane with brand new equipment on a 5 year lease. They installed 5 semi-truck trailers-full in one week. They also got an OCT, Gdx, pachy, anterior and posterior segment photography, and corneal topographer. They’re starting a new PUCO retinal diagnostic services clinic that area eye docs can refer for special imaging. You can optionally ask for an interpretation with the report.

Really, there is too much for me to cover. I’m pretty sure we’re all bored reading this now. I’ll quit until tomorrow.

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Well, I was supposed to be blogging like a maniac about GWCO, but instead I took some time for myself and watched a movie on PBS called Skinwalkers. I take an interest in Native American culture. I’ve lived next to an Indian reservation all my life (except college), and up until last Friday, for the last two years I’ve lived on an Indian Reservation. I don’t want to give away anything about the ending of the movie, but one of the discussions is “medicine man healing” vs. “white man medicine.” This draws some interesting parallels between my religious culture and modern medicine. In my religion, I have the priesthood which includes the power to heal. You might call me and the other brethren medicine men.

So, should I say a prayer over my patients or treat them with the tools of modern medicine? I haven’t run across the situation where a patient asks me for a special healing prayer. Those who know about priesthood power would normally ask the priesthood holder closest to them. Normally, I only use my priesthood for my family and a few other members of my church that I’m asked to befriend and routinely visit to give a little gospel lesson each month.

Personally, I don’t know how I would react if a stranger in my exam room asked for a healing blessing. I would never charge for a priesthood blessing- we know how the Lord feels about that. I think I would do the ocular exam as per usual and Rx modern medicine as per usual. If they are already assigned a priesthood holder, I would ask them to call that brother. If they aren’t of my faith, then I guess I’d ask them to come over to my house or meet me at the church after office hours.

But that brings up another point. With perfect faith, wouldn’t all the healing prayers be answered? Well, do we mere mortals have perfect faith? Do we always connect ourselves with the will of God? I think we all should try. I know that the power of priesthood healing is real. I’ve experienced it myself, and I’ve administered it to others. I still take our kids to the E.R./Urgent Care. I still do all I know how to do(modern medicine speaking), but I also ask or administer a priesthood blessing. I don’t believe that it shows a lack of faith. Quite the opposite. If I only did what modern medicine tells us, without prayer, it would show a trust in the arm of flesh- not God. If I only prayed instead of seeking medical attention, then it would show a lack of faith in my God since he has blessed us with so much knowledge and so many people to help us. Miracles are accomplished by people helping people. The Lord often answers our prayers through the actions of others.

Anyway, a little off topic for this site, but the movie Skinwalkers got me thinking about the metaphysical and the physical and how it relates to me as an eye care professional.

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I have a bad habit of not staying in the actual convention approved hotel. This year, it’s not my fault because they were already booked up.
Last year I tried staying in the La Quinta Inn nearest the Portland Convention Center. We stayed there only one night because the room we got had the worst moldy-musty smell ever. We then went over to the GWCO approved Double Tree Lloyd Center and stayed the rest of the time. The only room they had was a tiny closet with a queen bed in it. My wife, two small kids, and I didn’t have enough room.
This year, I wanted to stay in a nice, big, clean smelling room with free high speed internet access. I found it in the Phoenix Inn Beaverton. They offer free wireless high speed access, and since I didn’t have a wireless card for my old laptop, they loaned me one for free. Just one hang up. I have an old Windows 98 machine which didn’t have drivers for a wireless PC card. I just went down to the 24 hour business center, plugged into the wall, downloaded the drivers from the internet, and voila, here I am making this post.
I knew I would be far away from the convention center. I was banking on using the MAX, and I was hoping the hotel shuttle would take me to the Sunset transit center, but the hotel shuttle only operates from 9-5 and only within a 5 mile radius. The good news is that the bus stop is very close, and total travel time to the convention is 1 hour. Not bad.
More tomorrow.

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Tonight we’re packing, and tomorrow we’re heading for PDX! I love Portland. Very nice place. I lived in Forest Grove while going to school, but most of my social life was spent visiting friends in Hillsboro, Aloha, and Beaverton. We’d go to Portland all the time.
I’ve got a hotel that includes free high speed internet so that I can update this site nightly. Like I mentioned before, I’m going to blog GWCO. I hope to find lots of interesting things to report about from the CE and the exhibitors.
I know they always have stuff going on the evening of Wednesday, but I never go to that. They also have two classes in the morning on Sunday, but I don’t stay for those either. I’ll just be up for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (10/13/05 to 10/15/05).
I’m going to tag all of the pictures I take with GWCO2005. I hope everyone else will do the same. I’ll have them posted with my account on Flickr. The most interesting ones I’ll also post here at optoblog.com.
In addition to posting pictures, I hope to find some interesting people who will agree to an interview. When I get some together, I’ll post a podcast on it. Off the top of my head, I want to ask about the latest in contact lenses, practice management and medical records software, and controversies in LASIK. Any topics you’d like to see covered?
If any of you will be taking pictures at GWCO, don’t forget to tag them with: GWCO2005

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I haven’t been posting recently because we’re moving. I’m leaving Indian Health Service and starting a private practice in Utah, so I’ve been busy finalizing my business plan, pro forma, etc. and getting ready for moving all our stuff.
Next week is the annual Great Western Council of Optometry meeting (GWCO) in Portland, OR. I went last year and enjoyed it. Actually, this year I was really looking forward to the AAOpt meeting in San Diego, but I can’t due to schedule conflicts. The GCWO meeting is a good choice, though, plus I get to visit all our friends in Portland. My favorite meetings also include the Northern Rockies Optometric Conference in Jackson Hole, WY.
Anyway, I’m going to GWCO and I’m gonna blog it. They do that all the time in techie circles, but to my knowledge it’s not done very much in eye care practicioner circles. Probably because blogging hasn’t caught on much with doctors yet. But it will.
Look for me wearing an optoblog.com t-shirt underneath my hawaiian shirt.

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