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Objective: The Eye Institute of Alberta Emergency Eye Clinic (EIA EEC) is a tertiary eye care centre that provides emergency eye services to a population of more than 1 million. The purpose of this study was to describe the epidemiology of ocular emergencies at the EIA EEC., Design: Prospective epidemiologic study based on secondary use of patient data., Participants: All patients seen in the EIA EEC on weekdays between July 2020 and June 2021., Methods: Charts were reviewed to obtain patient demographics, referral details, final diagnoses, need for imaging, emergency procedures, or further referrals. SPSS Statistics was used for data analysis., Results: A total of 2586 patients were seen over the study period. Most of the referrals (58%) were from emergency physicians. Optometrists and general physicians contributed 14% and 11% of referrals, respectively. Most referral diagnoses were related to inflammation (32%), and trauma (22%). Of all the cases of inflammation, 41% involved infection of the eye and 8% involved infection of ocular adnexa. In addition, 44% and 7% of cases involved noninfectious inflammation of the eye and adnexa, respectively. Frequently preformed emergency procedures were corneal or conjunctival foreign-body removal (39%) and corneal scraping (14%)., Conclusions: Continuing education related to emergency eye care may be most beneficial to emergency physicians, general practitioners, and optometrists. Educational opportunities could focus on most frequently seen diagnostic categories such as inflammation and trauma. Targeted public education aimed at preventing ocular trauma and infection, such as promoting wearing eye protection and practicing contact lens hygiene, may be beneficial., (Copyright © 2023 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: In Canada, there is a recognized underrepresentation of women in the field of surgery. However, the extent to which this trend applies across various surgical specialties is not well delineated. The aim of this study is to identify existing disparities and trends over time to inform the need for future interventions to make the match process more equitable for applicants., Methods: Data regarding surgical specialty applicants was extracted from the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS)'s 2003 to 2022 reports., Results: A total of 9,488 applicants ranked surgical specialties as their first choice from 2003-2022. Increases in the proportion of women applicants comparing periods 2003-2007 to 2018-2022 were significant for cardiac surgery (22% to 43%, p = 0.03), general surgery (46% to 60%, p<0.001), orthopedic surgery (23% to 35%, p<0.001), urology (23% to 38%, p<0.001), and all aggregated surgical specialties ('all surgery') (45% to 55%, p<0.001). An increase in the proportion of women applicants who matched over the same periods was observed for general surgery (+47% to 60%, p<0.001), orthopedic surgery (24% to 35%, p<0.01), urology (21% to 34%, p<0.001), and all surgery (46% to 54%, p<0.001). From 2003-2022, a lower match rate for women compared to men was observed for otolaryngology (0.60 v 0.69, p = 0.008), urology (0.61 v 0.72, p = 0.003), and all surgery (0.71 v 0.73, p = 0.038), while higher match rates were observed for ophthalmology (0.65 v 0.58, p = 0.04). No statistically significant differences in match rate were observed from 2018-2022., Conclusions: While the proportion of women applicants to surgical specialties in Canada has been increasing, women remain underrepresented in several surgical specialties. This underrepresentation cannot be solely attributed to fewer women applying to these specialties, as women experience lower success rates when matching to specific surgical specialties. Further research is essential to identify and address the underlying causes of these disparities., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Bondok et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Objective: To create a standardized undergraduate medicine ophthalmology curriculum for Canadian medical schools., Design: Two-stage modified Delphi technique., Participants: Undergraduate ophthalmology leads at all the medical schools in Canada and 6 nonophthalmologist physicians with medical education expertise., Methods: In stage 1, a preliminary list of curricular objectives was developed using the 2018 Association of University Professors in Ophthalmology's list of curricular objectives as a foundation. Subsequently, an online survey was sent to 24 individuals (18 ophthalmology undergraduate curriculum leads and 6 non-ophthalmology medical educators) at 17 institutions to evaluate the objectives using a 5-point Likert-type scale. In stage 2, the ophthalmology curriculum leads were invited to participate in a virtual meeting during which the list of curricular objectives was discussed and finalized by consensus., Results: In stage 1, a preliminary list of 76 learning objectives organized into 10 overarching topics was developed. A total of 21 survey responses were received (87.5% response rate), allowing for the creation of a revised list. In stage 2, five participants from four schools met, achieving consensus following one round of feedback. The final undergraduate ophthalmology curriculum contained 10 topics and 75 objectives; it covered common presentations of a variety of acute and chronic eye diseases that were felt to be relevant to a wide medical audience., Conclusions: The consensus obtained on a comprehensive list of undergraduate medicine ophthalmology curricular objectives identified in this study is the first of its kind in Canada. These objectives can be used by medical schools across Canada to standardize undergraduate ophthalmology teaching., (Copyright © 2023 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. All rights reserved.)

Background: Applicants to ophthalmology have high rates of going unmatched during the CaRMS process, but how this compares to other competitive or surgical specialties remains unclear. Our research aims to examine this phenomenon by identifying trends and comparing match data with other specialties, to identify disparities that may inform the need for future interventions to improve the match process for applicants., Methods: We used a cross-sectional analysis of data provided by CaRMS on the residency match from 2013 to 2022., Results: We obtained data from 608 ophthalmology, 5,153 surgery, and 3,092 top five (most competitive) specialty first choice applicants from 2013-2022. Ophthalmology applicants were more likely to go unmatched (18.9% [120/608]) than applicants to the top five (11.9% [371/3,092]) and surgical (13.5% [702/5,153]) specialties (p<0.001) and were twice as likely to rank no alternate disciplines (31.8%, p < 0.001) over the study period. In the first iteration, when alternate disciplines were ranked, the match rate to alternate disciplines was highest for ophthalmology applicants (0.41, p < 0.001). The majority (57.8%) of unmatched ophthalmology applicants do not participate in the second iteration., Conclusion: Compared to other competitive specialties, first choice ophthalmology applicants were more likely to go unmatched, rank no alternate disciplines, and choose not to participate in the second iteration. Ophthalmology applicant behaviours should be further studied to help explain these study findings., Competing Interests: The authors have no financial or proprietary interest in any materials discussed in this article., (© 2024 Bondok, Bondok, Law, Nathoo, Damji; licensee Synergies Partners.)

Objective: Lengthy wait times for cataract surgery can negatively affect patients' quality of life and increase the incidence of falls and depression. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented significant challenges to the delivery of elective cataract surgeries. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on cataract surgery wait times in the Alberta Health Services' Edmonton zone were studied by examining the wait times before and during the pandemic., Methods: This study was conducted based on a retrospective population-based design. Data were compiled from a centralized database related to hospital-based cataract surgery (Royal Alexandra, Fort Saskatchewan, and WestView Health Centre) between April 2019 and March 2022 (i.e., 3 fiscal years)., Results: The average wait time for cataract surgery increased from 14.4 ± 1.4 weeks in 2019-2020 to 18.2 ± 2.7 weeks in 2020-2021 (p = 0.005) and then decreased to 11.5 ± 1.3 in 2021-2022 (p < 0.001). The number of completed surgeries decreased from 13,103 in 2019-200 to 9,308 (p = 0.09) and 10,365 (p = 0.1) during the next 2 years. The annual operating room time for scheduled cases was reduced to 4463 hours (p = 0.42) and 4552 hours (p = 0.15) during the pandemic compared with 5541 hours before the pandemic. However, the average waitlist size decreased from 6629 at the end of 2019-200 to 6122 (p = 0.029) and 4011 (p < 0.001) during the next 2 years., Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in significantly increased average wait times for elective cataract surgery during the first year of the pandemic. Because of a reduction of the waitlist size, the wait times decreased during the second year of the pandemic., (Copyright © 2022 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)