The number of in-person conferences and professional events plummeted in 2020, and remote meetings became the new norm for most optometric professionals for at least a year. A recent Women In Optometry Pop-up Poll sent out just after Optometry’s Meeting, found that now that most meetings have a live element in 2022, 44 percent of the respondents said that they are rarin’ to attend in person.

About 20 percent of respondents said that they’ve been coming back cautiously, and another 13 percent said that they have avoided live meetings up until this point but might be ready to return. Just more than 23 percent said they have no plans to start attending in-person events anytime soon—noting that they stayed away from live conferences even before the pandemic.

Whether or not respondents personally wanted to start in-person networking again, almost two-thirds (63 percent) of all respondents said that while live meetings have a place, virtual meetings have distinct advantages. Just more than 20 percent said that they prefer to get their CE/industry engagement virtually or online, while 17 percent said that nothing beats a live meeting.

Ongoing concerns with COVID-19 exposure was a factor for many, and quite a few said that they were freed from geographic boundaries and could attend interesting sessions no matter where they were hosted or held.