Chicago, April 5 ─ The American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) today launched EyeSpaceMD, its new educational web portal that combines the best features of a resource library with a first-of-its-kind "social media" component. EyeSpaceMD users can contribute to the content of the site and use it to shape their own individual educational agendas.

EyeSpaceMD will feature presentations captured from the ASCRS Annual Symposium along with other meetings from around the world. Many of the presentations will be available for viewing within 24 hours of when they were originally delivered. The site also offers online discussion groups, video and image libraries, and ophthalmology's first social media network.

In additional to viewing the latest meeting presentations, EyeSpaceMD users can also contribute their own material. "For some time now, we've been intrigued with the idea of open-access communication. We've seen the surgical videos, photographs, and other information that ASCRS members collect on their own and hope to harness the tremendous value and learning potential that's currently housed in individual offices. EyeSpaceMD provides a central location where ophthalmologists can post their own content and share it with their colleagues. Think of it as a YouTube for ophthalmology," said Brad Shingleton, MD, ASCRS President.

In addition, through EyeSpaceMD's social media software, users can actively rank and tag any content housed on the site to make it easier for others to find and to assign their own personal assessment of quality. With EyeSpaceMD every user can be an editor and a reviewer. The best-ranked content will naturally rise to the top to be seen by the most viewers in shortest period of time. Users can also post comments directly to the individual content providers when they have questions or need more information.  

ASCRS' goal with EyeSpaceMD is to foster collaborative interaction between ophthalmologists of similar interests, essentially allowing individuals to design their own education programs. "We're looking to build an international ophthalmic "community" that will change the way ophthalmologists relate to each other and work together", said Dr. Shingleton, "With EyeSpaceMD, ASCRS hopes to become a purveyor of solutions rather than just information."