WHO’S YOUR MENTOR?

     Late last month, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the summer quarter graduation ceremony at Ohio State, where 1,922 degrees were granted. I was there because I was scheduled to hood my seventh PhD student, Fellow Kathryn Richdale, but I was almost as proud to watch Fellow Eric Ritchey receive his PhD degree, too. I hosted a dinner for Kathryn the night before that included colleagues from optometry and radiology, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of Kathryn’s work on ocular magnetic resonance imaging with a 7 Tesla magnet. The whole weekend got me thinking about my own PhD graduation from UC Berkeley in 1992 when Fellow/AAO Past-President/AOF Immediate Past-President/OVS editor/UC Berkeley Dean Emeritus (wow!) and my PhD advisor, Tony Adams, hooded Fellow Don Mutti and me. It was a magical late spring day in northern California, and the ceremony was conducted within the shadow of the iconic Campanile on the Berkeley campus. The day culminated in a celebration at Don’s parents’ home with family, children, friends, and Berkeley optometry classmates, laughter, tears, and even a homemade beer, “Graduation Ale.” We all have mentors. They advise us on work, life, health, and what book we should read next. They tell us what they think would be good for us and what might represent bad choices or decisions. They behave like grown-ups when we can’t or won’t. Their advice isn’t perfect, and we can generally take it or leave it, but it’s amazing how often they turn out to have been correct, at least in hindsight. They are different than friends and even different than parents--more vested in our achievements and often more disappointed in our stumbles. Perhaps your mentor was a favorite teacher or particularly tough clinical attending in optometry school. He may be someone who has provided you spiritual guidance. She may be a senior partner in your practice or an optometrist you worked for right out of school. In addition to Tony Adams, I was mentored very early in my career by Mark Mannis, now the Chair of the University of California, Davis Department of Ophthalmology. Somehow he heard that I became the President of the Academy in San Francisco and had flowers delivered to my office shortly after the meeting. I called him on Thanksgiving morning last year to thank him for the flowers and told him that he was what Kathryn sometimes calls me (on a good day), “the mentor of my heart.” Think about your own mentors for a minute, those of your heart, mind, or soul. Initiate contact with them; email, write, or text your mentors and protégés. If you haven’t been in touch in a while, update him on your achievements and current challenges. If you see her all the time, say thank you. If you mentor others, renew those efforts. Make her a priority today. Provide the feedback you know he needs but have had a hard time finding the words to deliver. If your partner in a mentoring relationship is attending the Annual Meeting in Boston, make arrangements now for a coffee date or meal so that your interaction is more than a wave and a smile on passing escalators. In either role—mentor or protégé—let the others know you value them in your life. If you want to learn more about mentoring and leadership, and perhaps spend some time at the Annual Meeting in Boston reflecting on these topics, register for the 2011 Merton C. Flom Leadership Insight Courses. There are two Fundamentals of Leadership courses, “What is Leadership?” and “Putting Leadership into Action,” and there’s an Intermediate Leadership Course, “How Navigating through Peaks and Valleys in the Present Can Help Make You a More Effective Leader.” P.S. To all of you who emailed or Facebooked me after last month’s column, I so appreciated it. Some of you wanted to be sure I was recovering; others cautioned me about future bicycling. A couple of you responded to the column’s encouragement, saying “Did you bug my office?” or “This is just what I needed.” Thanks to all of you. I’m fine, although I think I may always have a lumpy left temple, and I’m cycling again. Now, get back to those case reports!
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