2024 WAEPS Annual Meeting

Physician Scientific CME Program

Meydenbauer Center
11100 NE 6th St
Bellevue WA 98004
March 7-8, 2024

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The Washington Academy of Eye Physicians and Surgeons presents an annual meeting which is attended by approximately 180 ophthalmologists as well as approximately 700 ophthalmic personnel, practice managers and coding professionals. The physician program, which begins on Thursday night, March 7 and continues with a full day program on Friday, March 8, is rich and diverse.

Faculty

The 2024 line-up of outstanding guest faculty for the physician program is as follows:

• Arsham Sheybani, MD, MD | Glaucoma
• Dilraj Grewal, MD | Retina
• Jose Pulido, MD | Ocular Oncology and Uveitis *Sponsored by the Washington Eye Foundation
• Kendall Donaldson, MD | Cataract, Cornea and Refractive Surgery
• Hans Bruhn, MD & Aaron Weingeist, MD| OMIC on Malpractice Prevention

Arsham Sheybani, MD

Dr. Arsham Sheybani completed his medical degree with honors (AOA) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He then completed his residency in Ophthalmology at Washington University in St. Louis and was selected to remain on faculty as Chief Resident. During that year, Dr. Sheybani was responsible for ophthalmologic trauma and emergencies as well as all adult inpatient ophthalmology consultations at Barnes Jewish Hospital. He then completed a fellowship with Ike Ahmed in Glaucoma and Advanced Anterior Segment Surgery in Toronto, Canada. He subsequently returned to Washington University School of Medicine as faculty in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences where he serves as Residency Program Director. He is currently involved in device design aiming to make glaucoma surgery safer. He is also developing biomarkers for the diagnosis and monitoring of Primary Open Angle and Pseudoexfoliation Glaucoma. He is an avid surgical teacher, winning the resident selected faculty teaching award early in his career and he was honored by the American Glaucoma Society as the Surgery Day Lecturer. His true passion remains in serving as the glaucoma and anterior segment surgery fellowship director.

Dilraj Grewal, MD

Dilraj Grewal, MD
Associate Professor of Ophthalmology with Tenure, Duke Eye Center
Associate Director, Duke Reading Center

Dr. Grewal is a Duke trained vitreoretinal surgeon and a Moorfields trained uveitis subspecialist with research interests in application of advanced ocular imaging for retinal, choroidal and ocular inflammatory diseases. At the Eye Multimodal Imaging in Neurodegenerative Disease (iMIND) research lab at Duke, our group has spearheaded efforts in using OCT, OCT angiography and fundus imaging to evaluate early retinal microvasculature changes in neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Grewal serves as Associate Director of the Duke Reading Center and work to develop novel imaging endpoints that are used across the entire spectrum of clinical trials including phase 3 registration clinical trials. He has worked on applications of advanced image segmentation and validation of anatomical endpoints and biomarkers using OCT and OCT angiography across a range of pathologies. His surgical practice comprises of complex referral vitreoretinal and uveitis cases as well as secondary IOLs and IOL exchanges. He is involved in development of new applications of surgical visualization technologies such as microscope integrated OCT.

Dr. Grewal has been recognized with the Senior Honor Award and Rhett Buckler Award from the American Society of Retina Specialists, Senior Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Ronald G. Michels and Heed Fellowship awards.

Jose Pulido, MD

Jose S. Pulido, MD, MS, MBA, MPH
Larry A. Donoso, MD, PhD, JD, MBA, Endowed Chair
Director of the Henry and Corrine Bower Memorial Laboratories for Translational Medicine
Vickie and Jack Farber Vision Research Center at Wills Eye
Professor, Department of Ophthalmology
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University

Dr. Pulido is a board-certified ophthalmologist with an extensive research portfolio that has focused on vitreoretinal infectious and inflammatory diseases, retinal degeneration, stem cells, checkpoint inhibitors, and immunotherapies where he has published close to 350 peer-reviewed ophthalmic papers, and numerous books, book chapters, and editorials. Dr. Pulido takes on this new role at Wills Eye as the Director of the Henry and Corrine Bower Memorial Laboratories for Translational Medicine in the Vickie and Jack Farber Vision Research Center at Wills Eye after fifteen years as Professor of Ophthalmology at Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Pulido earned a bachelors and master's in chemistry at the University of Chicago and a degree in medicine from Tulane University School of Medicine. He completed his ophthalmology residency and served as Chief Resident at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Following residency, he completed a vitreoretinal surgery and retina research fellowship at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Additionally, before starting his position at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Pulido earned his MB at the University of Iowa, completed an ocular oncology fellowship at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and earned an MPH at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Pulido has held Visiting Professorships and presented named lectures throughout the world. He has more than a dozen patents and won many awards and high honors in the field of ophthalmology throughout his career.

Dr. Pulido’s research interests focuses on translating basic science to the clinical arena and much of his work has centered on vitreoretinal infectious and inflammatory diseases. In more recent work, Dr. Pulido has tried to actually combine his interests in inflammatory diseases and oncology and developed a phase 1 trial using a VSV based vaccine for the treatment of metastatic uveal melanoma. At Wills Eye Hospital, Dr. Pulido will continue to pursue his passion of translational research of inflammatory diseases and immunotherapies to develop innovative clinical therapies for ocular diseases.

Kendall Donaldson, MD

Kendall E. Donaldson, MD, MS
Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology
Cornea/External Disease/Refractive Surgery
Medical Director Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of Plantation

Kendall E. Donaldson, MD, MS, Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology and cornea specialist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute completed her residency training and cornea/external disease fellowship at Bascom Palmer in 2004.  Prior to ophthalmology she completed a master’s degree in anatomy and physiology, serving as an instructor and eventually directing the anatomy labs for the University of Maryland throughout the course of her undergraduate and graduate education.  During her ophthalmology training, she also pursued a certificate program in Management through the Wharton School for Business preparing her to become the Medical Director of the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the Plantation satellite upon its opening in November of 2004.  Since that time, the satellite has grown to include 16 doctors who rotate through the facility providing patients with a full spectrum of ophthalmic services including the highly specialized care available at the Ocular Surface Center in Plantation. 

In addition to caring for her patients, Dr. Donaldson has also enjoyed working with the residents and fellows and served as co-director of the cornea fellowship from 2013 to 2020.  She continues to enjoy teaching surgical skills and working on research projects with the residents and fellows on a daily basis.  She travels to give over a hundred and fifty lectures annually on a local, national and international levels on cataract surgery and corneal disease.  She has authored a variety of peer-reviewed and non-peer reviewed articles and book chapters.  She has also organized, moderated, and lectured at many local and national meetings and served on several AAO, AECOS and ASCRS committees. Dr. Donaldson has received many awards including Ocular Surgery News Top 300 doctors each year, Florida Superdoctors, Leading Physicians of the World, and the MillenialEye Outstanding Female Leader Award in 2016.  She was selected to be one of the top 100 most influential female figures in ophthalmology in 2021 on The Ophthalmologist Power List.  In 2022, she was honored to be in the Top 100 Ophthalmologists worldwide according to the Ophthalmologist Power List and she was also named on the 2022 Newsweek Best Ophthalmologists list of the top 175 ophthalmologists worldwide.

Dr. Donaldson’s primary research interests are in the area of advancements in cataract surgery, and in particular, laser-assisted cataract surgery, severe ocular surface disease, and complex endothelial keratoplasty. She performs various types of corneal transplantation procedures, laser vision correction procedures, ocular surface reconstruction, and cataract surgery. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family in Florida, playing tennis, paddle boarding, and playing the piano with her 3 children.

OMIC Presentation:

Hans Bruhn & Aaron Weingeist, MD

Hans Bruhn has more than 33 years of experience working in the medical malpractice / professional liability insurance field. 
He has worked for several national medical malpractice insurance companies and brokers during his career.  Currently, he is a Risk Manager with Ophthalmic Mutual Insurance Company (OMIC) based in San Francisco, California.  In his current position, Hans works with physicians and their staff, advising them on how to reduce the risk of medical malpractice claims in their practice.  In addition, Hans travels across the United States, giving presentations to various medical and subspecialty societies on risk management topics.   He is also a contributing writer on risk management topics for OMIC and other publications.

Hans earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education (BS-Ed) from The University of Wisconsin and a Master of Science degree in Health Services Administration (MHS) from Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, CA.

Board-certified ophthalmologist Dr. Aaron P. Weingeist obtained his medical degree from The University of Iowa, Roy J. Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, Iowa in 1993.  He completed an internship in internal medicine followed by a three-year residency in Ophthalmology at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Washington.

Dr. Weingeist  specializes in refractive and cataract surgery. He is board certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology and is certified in iLASIK surgery. He also treats eye diseases such as diabetes, glaucoma, macular degeneration, as well as performs refractions for glasses and contact lenses. Dr. Weingeist is on staff at CHI Highline Medical Center in Burien. 

Schedule

Thursday evening, March 7, 2024: Physician dinner with CME program: 7 to 9:30 p.m.

Friday, March 8, 2024: Physician program continues 8 a.m. to noon and reconvenes 2 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.

Total CME credit: 8.0 hours

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Physician Dinner Meeting / CME Program: 7:00 - 9:30 PM

Friday, March 8, 2024

Physician Program Continues: 8:00 AM – 5:15 PM

Accreditation Statement

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of The University of Washington School of Medicine and WAEPS. The University of Washington School of Medicine is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The University of Washington School of Medicine designates this live activity for a maximum of 8.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits^™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Speaker Disclosure Summary

Registration Fee

Note: In order to take advantage of the significant member discounts on registration fees, the member's 2024 dues must be paid prior to registration.

Register Online

Parking

Underground parking is available at Meydenbauer Center. For other parking options in the area, click here: Area Public Parking Map

Reciprocal society members

WAEPS has reciprocal arrangements with ophthalmology societies in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and British Columbia. Physicians, providing proof of membership in their respective state and province societies, may register at the Active WAEPS Member rate. Please contact our office for details if you would like to take advantage of this opportunity: [email protected]

Cancellations

Cancellation requests must be submitted in writing. There is a $50.00 fee for cancellation before February 28, 2024. There are no refunds for cancellations after February 28, 2024. No Exceptions.

For more information or questions

Please contact the WAEPS office at 206-956-3635 or email [email protected]

For Information about each of the other components of our annual meeting click below:

Ophthalmic Coding, Documentation, and Reimbursement Seminar

2024 WAEPS Ophthalmic Medical Personnel Program (Tech Program)