Precursor meetings: the idea of putting on a Caribbean conference originated in St Croix as a means of providing a forum for Caribbean-based ophthalmologists to review and express their cases and work on a regional basis. John Merritt, Claude Cowan, Jr. and Fred Anduze organized the first Caribbean Eye conference under the sponsorship of Howard University College of Medicine which specifically invited local and regional ophthalmologists to the Virgin Islands. The first “unified” ophthalmic conference was held on the island of St Thomas, Virgin Islands, March 12-13, 1986, entitled, Uveitis in the Caribbean. It was sponsored by Howard University under the guidance of Claude Cowan, Jr, MD. At this first time conference, Alcon Pharmaceutical was invited to attend. They did not sponsor. Juan Gonzalez, Alcon representative for the Caribbean, saw it was a good program and he requested to co-sponsor with Howard for the following year, which was held on St Croix, Virgin Islands, Symposium on Glaucoma, March 13-14, 1987.  Claude Cowan Jr, John Merritt, Kevin Greenidge, Carl Kupfer of National Institutes of Health, and Douglas Gaasterland of Georgetown University, were the main speakers;  Anthea Connell of Barbados, Hugh Vaughan of Jamaica, and  Alfred Anduze of St Croix, represented the  Caribbean.  Roger Mason was a resident and presented on his visual fields in glaucoma work in St Lucia for first time;  Alcon sponsored two Puerto Rico speakers (Juan Nevarez & Jose Berrocal) ; CME credits were provided by St Croix Hospital, CME Committee, Alfred Anduze, Chairman;  also attending this meeting were Cyril Reifer and Clive Gibbons of Barbados, and Sonja Johnston, Deo Singh and Anirudh Mahabir of Trinidad.