DEAR COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS,

We have started the eighth year of successful exitence and work of our association. It's a great honour and pleasure for me to address you as the new president and one of the founders of COLSS. Taking into account that the last few years have brought a greater interest into contactology, as a part of ophthalmology, with both our and foreign ophthalmologists and that the start of the new millenium has been marked by an increase in the number of contact lense users I think that our work is of an outstanding importance for the development of contactology in our country.

Obzirom da se kontaktologija kod nas razvija skoro pet decenija zahvaljujući vrsnim oftalmolozima čast mi je da nastavim tradiciju I svojim radom i zalaganjem doprinesem afirmaciji našeg udruženja u Evropi i svetu.

As contactology has been developing here for almost five decades thanks to competent ophthalmologists, it is an honour to continue this tradition and to contribute with my work and dedication to the affirmation of our association in Europe and the whole world.

Only two years after COLSS has been founded we became full members of the European association ECLSO in 2006, and for the past six years have been actively involved in the work and education as lecturers together with collegues from 25 countries, members of the European association. We have successfully organized the third contactology course together with the Medical faculty ophthalmology department, which has been accredited by the Health Council, and have produced new generation of certified contactologists.

We have also organised the Second symposium on Contactology. It has been a special privilege that our guest and lecturer was PhD Rene Mely, present president of the European association ECSLO.

This is just one small part of the efforts we are making to broaden the knowledge, covering scientific aspects of medical contacology, and all this with the aim of promoting secure and healthy wearing of content lenses and, of course, of making contactology still a part of academic medicine and opthtalmology, and not the comercial spheres of non-medical professions.

As president of the assiciation, I welcome all the young and interested ophthalmologists to our association, to continue our successful work and path to new knowledge in this field.

President of the COLSS Associations of contactologists – ophthalmologists of Serbia

Prim. Ph D Valentina Dimitrijević -Milovanović