Mission:
Women In Ophthalmology was founded to enhance and improve the professional environment for women ophthalmologists. WIO encourages diversity, impartiality, and economic parity, and strives to cultivate new opportunities for leadership, education, and public service in the field of ophthalmology for ourselves and future generations.

President's Message:
It is my privilege to serve as your new WIO president for 2009. I will do my best to maintain the high standards of our wonderful, immediate past-president, Dr. Laura King. I look forward to an exciting year for WIO. Amidst these turbulent economic times, many of us ponder about what the future holds for not only ourselves, but also the next generation. Fortunately, we are in a profession in which demand for our service is mostly unaffected by outside forces. ...more



History:
Women are entering medical school in unprecedented numbers, and in some institutions, are the majority of enrolled students. This is a far cry from the 1960's when the founding officers of WIO were medical students in schools where barely 5% of a given class were women.

The need for collegial relationships, the effectiveness of a support network, and validating communications led founding WIO officers in the mid-1970's to bring together about 25 women who met for noon-time luncheons, speakers, and networking at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). The early women in ophthalmology were few in their respective departments and worked on such challenging issues as gender equity in pay, academic promotion and tenure track opportunities, and the need for recognition of academic achievement.

The luncheon gatherings evolved into a structured organization that enables WIO to share information and solve problems that previously were often faced in isolation. The late Bernice Z. Brown, MD, brought further recognition to the organization in her term as the third president. In 1997, she began what has been a continuous series of WIO-AAO co-sponsored symposia at the AAO Annual meeting. She led a strategic planning retreat during which our current mission statement was implemented with emphasis on education and service. ...more