The Packo Service Award

The American Society of Retina Specialists established the Packo Service Award in 2019 to recognize a member for exceptional service to the Society. 

The award is named for its first recipient, Kirk H. Packo, MD, FACS, FASRS, professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology and director of the Retina Section at Rush University Medical Center. 

Dr. Packo’s dynamic leadership and strategic innovations over 30 years helped shape the ASRS into an internationally recognized medical organization that encompasses all things retina.

Dr. Packo, who served as president of the Society from 2001-2002, served as a driving force behind many of the Society’s cornerstone initiatives, including the Preferences and Trends Survey and Film Festival.


2024 Packo Service Award Recipient

John T. Thompson, MD, FASRS, assistant professor at the Wilmer Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and associate clinical professor at the University of Maryland, is the winner of the 2024 Packo Award in recognition of his exceptional service to the Society.

The Packo Award is named in honor of its first recipient, ASRS 2001-2002 President Kirk H. Packo, MD, FACS, FASRS, whose dynamic leadership and strategic innovations helped shape and advance the Society for more than 30 years.

Dr. Thompson is a partner at Retina Specialists in Baltimore, Maryland. He served as the 2012-2014 president of the ASRS and the 2014-2016 president of the Foundation. Dr. Thompson also is the associate editor-in-chief of the ASRS’s Journal of Vitreoretinal Diseases.

He received the ASRS Founders Award in 2017, and in 2012, became ASRS’s advisor to the AMA Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC), providing expertise on vitreoretinal surgery, and is now serving on the RUC’s Relativity Assessment Workgroup. Over the past several years, Dr. Thompson has played a pivotal role in the Society’s advocacy initiatives, representing retina specialists and patients to ensure continued access to care and adequate reimbursement.

Dr. Thompson launched the Foundation’s popular Retina Health Series patient fact sheets and continues to serve as chief editor of the series. He also oversaw the development of the Foundation’s Surgical Video Learning Library aimed at fellows in training and early-career retina specialists.

In addition to his extensive ASRS involvement, Dr. Thompson has served the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) as director of Retina Subspecialty Day in 2007; he received the AAO Life Achievement Honor Award in 2009 and Secretariat Awards in 2014 and 2019. Dr. Thompson has been an examiner for the American Board of Ophthalmology since 2001 and has co-authored more than 130 papers in peer-reviewed journals, editorials, and book chapters on vitreoretinal surgery. He serves on the editorial boards of Retina, Ophthalmology, and Ophthalmology Retina.


Past Recipients


2023     Timothy G. Murray, MD, MBA, FASRS

2022     Suber S. Huang, MD, MBA, FASRS

2021      Reginald J. Sanders, MD, FASRS 

2020     ASRS Founders, Jerald Bovino, MD, FASRS, Roy Levit, MD, FASRS, and Allen Verne, MD, FASRS

2019     Kirk H. Packo, MD, FACS, FASRS