Glaucoma Patient Summit
The Glaucoma Patient Summit is an annual event that highlights advances in treatment options and provides practical information to help patients understand and live with glaucoma.
How Can Patients Become Partners?
Discover the difference one day can make when glaucoma patients gather to share their experiences, learn about glaucoma care from the experts, and take charge of their own vision health.
Jeffrey Soohoo, MD: I think events like this are important because they show what else is out there. They bring in kind of a larger picture to someone’s personal chronic disease. I think as a glaucoma patient you might even feel isolated, especially if you have advanced disease. You might not have a lot of friends that have glaucoma. So bringing together people that have different kinds of glaucoma, people that have had different degrees of visual impairment from glaucoma, and then connecting them with researchers and educators to share ideas and share information.
Colleen Silveira: The information in which the doctors are relaying all different topics of glaucoma has been a fantastic spread of ideas, thoughts, technology, concerns. Having patient stories that also were on the panel today was great, but I think it just encompassed everything that any glaucoma patient has ever thought or wondered or had concern about, and so I would absolutely come to this every year.
Rebecca Vilendrer: Well, I think it’s important to learn as much as you can about glaucoma as a patient. And this forum gives you the opportunity to learn from ophthalmologists, to learn from other patients, to learn from the drug representatives, from the companies. And so it’s a forum where you can learn more and I think that’s very important.
A. Sydney Williams, MD: A patient can really get an idea of the steps that they can take to further their interactions with their doctor, to understand when a second opinion might be necessary, to understand when it’s important to see a glaucoma subspecialist, and also to interact with other patients in a kind of informal format in a way where you can hear stories of other people that have followed the same path that you’re following.
David Epstein: Any way that GRF can help educate patients is a phenomenal thing. I’m amazed at the turnout and I think it’s a great event and it’s super helpful, especially for someone like me.
Marilyn Rogers: Hearing everybody speak, it seems like people should really get a specialist as soon as they know they have glaucoma.
Yvonne Ou, MD: I think it’s really important to also raise awareness about glaucoma and highlight the needs that patients have, for patients to hear about what’s going on in the research arena and new technologies, but also for us to be able to know what are patients concerned about.
Hannah Eckstein: When you’re here in person and you see the passion behind it, it really puts you in a place where you realize, oh, something is actually happening. Someone actually cares about me and everyone else who has this disease.
Shan Lin, MD: You get an overview of what’s the latest in glaucoma management and taking care of yourself, and it lets you be really an active participant in your own care.
End Transcript.
In 2019 we hosted our first annual Glaucoma Patient Summit, a live forum sharing the latest treatment options and practical insights into living with glaucoma.
Attendees represent a diverse population, from people born with glaucoma to the newly diagnosed. Patients and caregivers have the opportunity to network, deepen their understanding of glaucoma, and hear about emerging pharmaceutical and surgical approaches.
Feedback from participants illustrates how powerful this kind of collaboration can be when you face a complex illness that threatens your vision.
June 23–24, 2023
Hilton Long Beach
Long Beach, California
For more information:
If you have questions about the 2023 Summit, please send an email to Brizette Castellanos.
The Gleams Newsletter includes interviews, personal stories, and current information about glaucoma, new treatments, updates on research findings, and more. You can subscribe to the printed version of Gleams or the electronic version — both are free.
The Gleams Newsletter includes interviews, personal stories, and current information about glaucoma, new treatments, updates on research findings, and more. You can subscribe to the printed version of Gleams or the electronic version — both are free.
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