Duke Eye Center recently hosted the Annual Duke Fellows’ Advanced Vitreous Surgery Course (fAVS) and prestigious Duke Advanced Vitreous Surgery Course (AVS) led by course director Lejla Vajzovic MD, FASRS along with co-chairs, Dilraj S. Grewal, MD, FASRS, Xi Chen, MD, PhD, and Durga S. Borkar, MD, MMCi. Duke retina faculty and fellow experts also participated by giving lectures, panel discussions, and leading wet labs.
The Duke fAVS course included over 100 fellows and residents from across the United States. The extensive educational content included medical and surgical panel discussions, surgical video tricks and tips, and an unparalleled wet lab experience that allowed participants the unique opportunity to directly compare sustained release technology, implants, 3D visualization systems, microscopes, intraoperative OCT machines, vitrectomy machines, forceps, laser probes, subretinal delivery devices, and a range of other tools across manufacturers.
The Duke AVS course was initiated by Robert Machemer, MD in 1978 and is held bi-annually. The 2023 program attracted more than 170 retina specialists/trainees. The course is composed of a series of lectures and interactive panel discussions led by distinguished invited speakers from across the world and Duke faculty members. The event showcased the latest in cutting-edge vitreoretinal surgical techniques, use of novel instrumentation and intraoperative visualization technology, as well as strategies to approach the most challenging surgical cases.
