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34th Annual Berkeley Practicum CE Conference

Berkeley Practicum.
See below for a recap of the record-breaking event!

Our Continuing Education team hosted a successful Berkeley Practicum this past weekend (January 14 – 16, 2023), with over 300 optometrists attending each day of the program (and over 330 on Sunday, the conference’s most popular day). This is the largest online audience for a virtual CE event since the online program began in 2020, and we are proud to have so many optometrists from around the nation participate in our CE offerings.

The 2023 Karen Walker-Brandreth keynote lecturer was Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, MD, professor of medicine at UCSF and 2022 recipient of the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization. His lecture, “COVID-19 and Monkeypox: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?,” reviewed current and emerging diagnostic, treatment and prevention options, and discussed how optometrists can prepare for the current and future public health threats. The conference was moderated by our CE Committee members, Harry Green, OD, PhD, FAAO, Katherine Lai, OD, FAAO, and Anne Tasaki, OD, and hosted and produced by our Office of Virtual Learning Initiatives (OVLI) team, Catherine McChrystal and Heather Reilly.

According to early participant feedback, an average of 98% said that they learned new information about the topics, and an average of 97% said that they feel the info will be useful when providing patient care after attending the lecture.

Among the early feedback from attendees includes:

“One of the best assortment of well spoken and knowledgeable speakers who discussed helpful topics relating to my practice. Thank you and I hope they return.”
“Technology worked well. Well organized. Top notch Academy level speakers and topics.”

The program provided 12 hours of COPE-approved CE lectures, including 6 TPA hours and 2 TPA-GL hours, and featured 7 speakers from across institutions such as UCSF, ICO, NSU Florida College of Optometry, VA Kansas City Health Care, and the Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science. Thank you to everyone who helped to put this event together, including those on our CE Committee and OVLI teams not mentioned above: Patsy Harvey, OD, MPH, FAAO, Matthieu Kaminski, Erika Racklin, Monica Porter, and Karen Walker-Brandreth, OD, FAAO.

Our next CE events are the Uveitis Care Series on March 5th and the 38th annual Morgan-Sarver Symposium on April 14 –16, 2023.

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