Ophthalmology in Other Countries: Inception of a Series

What's happening in the world of foreign ophthalmology? With the arrival of 1985, we introduce a new editorial section to help answer this question. We begin the series with an article on Canada. Fortunately for us and our patients, ophthalmic horizons are periodically expanded by developments not only in the United States but also in other countries. One need only think of intraocular lenses, refractive surgery, and Nd-YAG lasers for a few recent examples. Nonetheless, few of us are fully informed about the practice of ophthalmology elsewhere, and even fewer are apprised of ophthalmic research and training in other countries. See also p 134. Xenophobia has never been common in medical sciences, but after World War II, American ophthalmology evolved in an essentially parochial and introspective fashion. This state of relative insularity was interrupted every two to four years by the International Congress of Ophthalmology and the Pan American Congress.