Who are BEAVRS

The aim of the Association is to promote high quality patient care by supporting and representing British and Irish Vitreo-Retinal Surgeons through education, research, audit and revalidation.

BEAVRS is neither a regulatory body nor a trade union. BEAVRS will accrue sufficient financial assets to entirely underwrite an annual meeting and fund the educational, research, revalidation and audit activities of the association.

BEAVRS is the acronym for the British and Eire Association of Vitreoretinal Surgeons.

The concept of a British Isles Vitreoretinal Society was conceived by David MacLeod, Tony Chignell and Peter Leaver. Their fellows at the time were David Wong, Paul Jacobs and Charlie James. This group of six are considered the founder members of the society and the first meeting was held at Keeble College in July 1986.

The initial principles for the BEAVRS annual meeting were that everyone who attended should present and that problems would be discussed in an uninhibited fashion. The meeting was also to be itinerant being both hosted and organised locally. The meeting has grown to more than 200 delegates so the former principle is no longer applicable, but there is still a tradition of frank exchange and discussion.

From 1993 BEAVRS have had an international visiting speaker who has given a guest lecture and contributed to discussion at the meeting. The list of luminaries invited has included Alain Gaudric, Peter Wiedermann, Carl Claes, Michael Trese, Cynthia Toth, Berndt Kirkhoff, George Williams, Jan Van Meurs, Don D’Amico, Ian Constable, Arndt Gandorfer, Stanislaw Rizzo, Kirk Packo, Ferenc Kuhn, Steve Charles, Antonia Joussen, Grazia Pertile, Morten la Cour, Thomas Wolfensberger, and Wilson Herriot.

For the first 24 years of its existence the Society prided itself on having no formal structure. However, the size of the meeting has grown to exceed 200 participants and this places an untenable financial burden on the host unit. In addition to this, there have been recent developments in revalidation and licensing of specialists. A decision was therefore unanimously taken at the 2009 BEAVRS meeting in Amsterdam to formalise the structure of the Society. This has provided a vehicle for Vitreo Retinal specialty standards within the United Kingdom as well as providing a formal administrative and financial structure with which to support the annual meeting. It also has enabled us to play a key role in supporting our members with a range of initiatives including the BEAVRS VR Outcomes database started on 2011, BEAVRS led buckling and [soon] vitrectomy courses, and several on line resources for consultants and fellows alike including the BEACON initiative, surgical training talks and videos and Cochrane Corner.