Regulations for the submission of theoretical and practical courses to the National Congress of the SPO

General rules

Each SPO member may submit a maximum of one (1) course as a proposer.
Each member may participate in a total of no more than two (2) courses (as a coordinator and/or speaker).
Each course should be 90 minutes long.
Only SPO members in good standing may submit applications.

Declaration of the financial interests of all members of the course teaching staff.
Indication of whether the course is focused on a single product or a single company.
Identification of two (2) course coordinators (one of whom is responsible for submission), who must be members of the faculty serving as lecturers, as well as the contact person for the SPO.
Faculty composition: It is recommended that the number of instructors not exceed five (5), including coordinators. Each member may participate in a maximum of two (2) courses (as a coordinator and/or speaker). All faculty members are advised to remain present for the entire duration of the course in order to interact with the panel and the audience.

The course must be submitted in English for accreditation purposes.
The purpose of Instructional Courses is to provide participants with didactic information on specific subjects covered by experts in the field and to include a time period for questions and answers.

The applicant can choose between different formats:

Didactic presentations with predefined questions and answers from the panel made up of the faculty under the guidance of the course organizer.
Presentation of clinical cases / discussion among faculty members and with audience involvement.
Practical skills and knowledge transfer course.

(For example, "What are the advantages and disadvantages of 'peeling' the internal limiter?")

The course outline should be structured and include:

Introduction: a brief explanation of the importance of the topic and the state of the art.
Objectives (no more than 200 words): Include the definition of the specific results expected for the participant and that complete the sentence "At the end of this course, participants will be able to...".
Summary of the course content: a brief description of what will be presented, its importance and how it will be presented.
Course agenda (no more than 200 words): Indication of the names of the speakers, the titles of the presentations and the order and duration of each presentation.
Level of audience the course is aimed at: Basic, basic-intermediate, intermediate, intermediate-advanced, advanced.
Recommended bibliography. It is advisable to also include publications by the teaching staff.

All course abstracts will be analyzed and ranked before the final selection is made according to the average score obtained. This evaluation process applies to all courses, new or repeated.
New courses will only be evaluated on the quality of the abstracts. The organizers of the new courses will be asked to provide a summary curriculum (up to 1 page) of all the members of the teaching staff, including previous publications on the subject.
Repeated courses will be evaluated not only by the summary but also by the results of previous evaluations on the quality of the course.
The specific topics of each course that need to be covered in the congress program will be taken into account when making the final selection.
It is not possible to reformulate or cancel a course once it has been accepted.
The organizing committee of the SPO National Congress may invite entities or organizations internal or external to the SPO to hold courses it considers relevant to the Congress program. These courses will be evaluated in the same way as courses submitted freely by SPO members.
Failure to show up or be replaced will mean that this faculty will not be accepted on future courses organized by the SPO at its National Congress.
The deadline for submissions is May 24, 2026.
The decision by the SPO Congress organizing committee is final and will be communicated via email by June 24, 2026.
Submissions should be sent by email to: socportoftalmologia@gmail.com