Dear Friends and Colleagues, both locally and from afar

It is a great privilege to invite you to the 52^nd OSSA congress which will be held in Gqeberha (previously named Port Elizabeth). We would like to invite you to our city which is affectionately known as the Friendly City. The congress will be held in the Boardwalk Convention Centre which has been newly renovated and offers fantastic facilities along with spectacular views over the Indian ocean.

As always, we strive to provide a world class faculty of speakers and we look forward to the mutual sharing of knowledge and skills. We have confirmed international speakers of the highest calibre already and look forward also to our local speakers adding African spice to the programme.

Confirmed speakers include, amongst others:

• Prof Srinivas Sadda (Director, Artificial Intelligence & Imaging Research, Doheny Eye Institute and Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of California – Los Angeles)
• Prof Steven Yeh (Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of Retina and Uveitis, University of Nebraska)
• Dr Tarek Shaarawy (Head of the Glaucoma Unit and the Glaucoma surgery research group at the University of Geneva Hospitals, President of the International Society of Glaucoma surgery)
• Prof Farhad Hafezi (Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Geneva, Switzerland)
• Prof Gerd Auffarth (Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Heidelberg University Eye Hospital and Head of the David J Apple Center for Vision Research which includes the David J Apple International Laboratory for Ocular Pathology)
• Dr Ronald Yeoh (Medical Director Camden Eye & Retina Surgeons, Singapore and Adjunct assistant professor at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School)

We have entertaining Masterclasses planned to kick off the congress. A Corneal masterclass will lead the way with interactive discussions on optimizing corneal cross-linking followed by lamellar corneal surgery training from novice to expert (This also includes wetlabs). The corneal masterclass will be followed by a retina and uveitis imaging masterclass with interactive case discussions.

This promises to be as diverse a programme as our city’s many monikers, and I look forward to seeing you all and welcoming you to the land of the so called “Big 7”.

Please join us for a few days to share ideas and meet up with old friends and colleagues.

Best wishes

Schalk du Toit

Congress Chair, Eastern Cape Branch OSSA