Prof. Marek Rękas: Population diseases have been successfully solved, but ophthalmology faces further challenges

How do ophthalmologists assess the ending year?

Ophthalmology is doing well, in my opinion. However, there are further tasks to be done. Just because one has solved the problem of cataracts and large, population-based diseases such as AMD and DME doesn't yet mean that there aren't more specific challenges. This is, for example, outpatient specialty care, where there must be increased availability for the treatment of rare diseases. We have also increased the availability of treatment for eye cancers. We opened the third cancer center in Poland at the Military Medical Institute. Thanks to this, the average waiting time is about three weeks, which is a sensational result.

There are training challenges ahead. A new specialty program, new accreditation rules have been introduced since January. The centers are just now accrediting themselves under these rules. We will see what the results and further decisions on training will be. They must be made, because in the future we want to train skills in ophthalmology. We need to select those centers that will do this. This also means providing funding.