Dear Colleagues,

We will organize Turkish Ophthalmological Association (TOA) Live Surgery Symposium will be held online on 3-5 September 2021. I’m pleased to invite you to this three day scientific meeting in which our all six surgery disciplines will attend.

Live surgery is accepted as one of the most important training forms in ophthalmology and it has been taking place in training activities of Turkish Ophthalmological Association for long years. In the past, the full day live cataract surgery meetings held during the national congress had a crucial place but as of 2017 TOA administrative board has transformed this event into an annual meeting and moreover reformed meeting as the united event of all surgical disciplines.

The symposium was organized with live surgery of cataract, glaucoma and vitreoretinal and video surgery of oculoplastics, squint and cornea in early years. The symposium was planned to pass live surgery in all six disciplines as of 2020 but the pandemic enabled this development to be performed only as virtual. Our symposium will be held online this year as a sole event. The disciplines will have the chance to enrich their video surgery presentations via the live discussions and will be able to answer the written questions of the audience. If they wish, our disciplines may give place to international surgeons and speakers in the scientific program. On the other side it is important to provide the meeting to be watched and followed on international level. So the symposium will be broadcasted both in Turkish and English in two different halls. It is among our goals to display the international status of Turkish ophthalmology achieved in recent years and share it with foreign colleagues. Our efforts for this in will absolutely continue.

In our symposium program, online oral and poster sessions will be scheduled allowing our colleagues to present their studies either in Turkish or English. The submissions are accepted through symposium website and it is open for foreign colleagues from abroad.

I would like to thank in advance to all national and international participants, TOA education and research units and directors, surgeons of the live surgery, session moderatos, the industrial companies that support the symposium with satellite meetings, virtual booths and sponsorship and the symposium organizing secretariat Valör Congress Organizations.

It is my great honor to invite you to Turkish Ophthalmological Association Live Surgery Symposium which is one of the most splendid events of ophthalmology with high educational level. I sincerely wish to breathe this scientific atmosphere together though it is a virtual one.

Prof. Dr. İzzet Can
President of the Turkish Ophthalmological Association
President of the Live Surgery Symposium Organizing Committee