ASRS 2024: Sustainability expert panel demonstrates how retina specialists go green

Ahead of this year's American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) meeting, Hattie Hayes, editor of Ophthalmology Times Europe, spoke with Martin Zinkernagel, MD, PhD. Prof Zinkernagel is a EURETINA board member and editor-in-chief of Ophthalmologica, the official EURETINA journal. At the ASRS meeting, he served on an expert panel, discussing the topic of sustainability. In this video, Prof Zinkernagel talks about the positive impact of sustainability measures in practice management, and advocates for including early-career retina specialists in decision-making.

Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Hattie Hayes: Hi, I'm Hattie Hayes and I'm the editor of Ophthalmology Times Europe. This year, the American Society of Retina Specialists held its annual meeting in Stockholm, Sweden. Joining me today is Professor Martin Zinkernagel, who is Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at University Hospital in Bern, Switzerland, and who spoke on the sustainability expert panel. Professor, thank you so much for joining me here today.

Martin Zinkernagel, MD, PhD: Thanks, Hattie, for having me.

HH: I know that this is a sustainability panel, rather than a symposium. Tell me, why do you think open dialogues are important for a broad topic like sustainability?

MZ: Sustainability is getting more and more important in our everyday clinical practices. And I think it's really important to discuss these issues, how to be more sustainable in our everyday life, and make the audience aware how they can improve their carbon footprint in clinical practice. I think this can only be achieved by discussion. It's also important to gauge the industry...industry's awareness of these problems, because the industry, as well, of course, as doctors, they can do a lot to reduce carbon dioxide emission in ophthalmology.

Also, with colleagues, we have a lot of young trainees and they're much more aware about waste and carbon offset in clinical practice. It's really a mix of all these things that led me to, you know, to be more aware of sustainability in in retina practice. [The expert panel at ASRS] is organised by Professor Geoffrey Emerson. On the panel will be Jacob Grodsky, David Anderson, Scott M McClintic, and also Jens Kiilgaard.

HH: How have those sustainability practice practices impacted your workflow? I think that a lot of physicians worry that it's going to be a big hassle, that it's going to be inconvenient. Tell me a little bit about how [sustainability has] actually impacted your practice.

MZ: Yeah, so I think the most important thing is that, often, it doesn't have to impact your practice. I think the first step is to be aware, to look at your setup, at your consumables. And for example, I mean, just to mention an example, we have calipers on our intravitreal injection trays, and, you know, I never use them. And I was not paying attention, and we just threw them into the bin. After we had the sustainability discussion, suddenly, I thought, "Okay, there's something on this tray I'm not using. Why put it on to the tray?"

I think this is the first step. You don't really have to change your workflow, but you need to be aware of what's on your tray, consumables. And maybe you can get rid of quite a lot of these consumables already without really influencing the workflow you have. You can save money, you can save time, you can save waste. So that's really, I think, this is really the first step. This is what the panel is all about, to really address these issues. Make our colleagues aware that this is an issue and they probably can contribute quite a lot without having to change a lot, and even streamline their workflow in clinical practice.

HH: You mentioned trainees earlier. How can sustainability be implemented into that education, and into that training to kind of ensure that it becomes a really core value of the next generation of clinicians?

MZ: Yeah, I think it's really important, especially in a university clinic, to have this education, to have regular sessions in the morning to talk about carbon reduction in ophthalmology and retina. Also because, in clinical practice, you have a lot of these issues. Do you really need to order single-use, one one way instruments? Or could you use reusable instruments? This also starts with, you know, let's have an example...To measure the eye pressure, you can use reusable caps or you can have single-use caps. And there it all starts: if you if you use reusable caps to to measure the eye pressure, you can save a lot of waste. So I think, you know, education starts early, you know, with young trainees, you make them aware that this is a problem, that they should be aware. It's also great to have discussions and ask them, "Where do you think we can save waste in our clinical everyday practice?" Often, the young people, they already have thoughts and they give great input, so you can really work on this together.