Dear Dr. *
.PP
.na
When I awoke this morning, 
it dawned on me what a refreshing and rewarding experience
the post-graduate course 
on the future of ophthalmology in fact had been,
and that I would want to jot down some of the thoughts
that it stimulated.
Considering the effort
that you made on our behalf,
I thought the least I could do is to 
report to you my thoughts on the morning after.
.PP
I have problems with the Academy's interpretation of ethics.
The motto "What doth it profit a man ..." ill befits
a generation of ophthalmologists that has gained the world.
Our ethics has too long consisted in detecting the motes
in the optometrists' eyes while denying the beams in it own.
We specialize in identifying scapegoats on whom we foist our faults
to be able to continue our social and economic debauchery undisturbed.
For myself I ask only the privilege to be humble
in the hope that I might become real.
.PP
That is why I have problems with the pompous puffery
those baseless claims of "the best", "the greatest"
that transforms our ophthalmological conventions into circuses
and makes the "leaders" of our profession act like clowns.
We ought not need an executioner from the Inspector General's Office
to bring home to us the obvious fact that 
the institutions which we have created
fail to address the needs of our patients.
.PP
Ophthalmology mirrors the characteristics
of the culture in which it has flourished.
Like the charlatans of other ages,
we have become wealthy by catering
to the public's demand for miraculous cures.
We aid and abet the public's self-deception,
implicitly by our silence, and all too often by explicit claims.