The annual surgical rounds issue is a favorite for many of us. It captures one of the most fun aspects of being a retina specialist: collaborating with each other to solve clinical problems. This one just happens to focus on the surgical side of things. When you read through these pages, we hope it transports you to the break room where some fellows tracked you down to discuss a tough macular hole case on the schedule. Or to a call made to a colleague to pick their brain about adding a scleral buckle to the surgical plan for a patient with proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) who’s heading back to the OR. Better yet, to a conference hall jotting down surgical pearls from lectures on optic pit maculopathy, visually significant vitreous opacities, and intraocular foreign bodies. The goal here is to bring these shared experiences to life for everyone to learn from.

We love the teamwork that is inherent in our field. We look forward to learning from each other and are always eager to try out a new surgical technique or tool. None of our cases are “routine,” and every surgical encounter is unique. That means we need to be flexible in the OR, ready to change surgical plans and call a friend when we need advice. (Of course, the longer you are in the OR, the fewer calls you make and the more you take.) There is always a challenging case that has us sifting through the literature to see how others have handled it. If it’s particularly interesting, we might find ourselves adding to that body of literature.

Every featured article in this issue addresses a scenario that’s anything but routine—they are controversial, up for debate, challenging, or have no set management guidelines. See the theme? We are continually refining our surgical approaches, and these types of conversations are crucial to help us find better ways to preserve our patients’ vision.

In this issue, Luke Mavrofrides and Matthew A. Cunningham, MD, FASRS, provide their guidance on managing optic pit maculopathy in the OR, and Tamer H. Mahmoud, MD, PhD, and Omar M. Moinuddin, MD, discuss our ever-expanding armamentarium for challenging macular holes. (Have you tried the retracting door inverted internal limiting membrane flap technique? That’s a mouthful.) Haemoglobin Parida, MBBS, MS, and Juan Carlos Gutierrez Hernandez, MD, share their approaches to organic and glass intraocular foreign bodies (with videos!), and Linnet Rodriguez, MD, teases out expert advice on retinal detachment repair in the setting of PVR from her colleagues at Wills Eye Hospital. Nita Valikodath, MD, MS, and her team review postoperative face-down positioning after retinal detachment repair, and Peter Karth, MD, MBA, FASRS, FACS, tackles one of the latest controversies in retina: vitrectomy for visually significant vitreous opacities. If medical retina is your jam, we have an interesting article on detecting infective endocarditis during a routine retinal examination by Mathew W. MacCumber, MD, PhD, and colleagues.

Whether you read cover-to-cover or pick through your favorite topics within, we hope you find this issue as fun as we do, learn something new, and are reminded that we are all united in our efforts to preserve our patients’ vision, especially when a condition, complication, or trauma sends them to the OR. Stay tuned for our last issue of the year, which focuses on the therapeutic pipeline.