One of my New Year's resolutions was to get my life's physical spaces in order. At home, that included converting a guest room to a quilt studio; at work, that just meant general cleaning up, straightening, and organizing. I'd been avoiding sorting through two large boxes in my office that came from my mother's attic after her death, now nearly two years ago. Sure enough, when I opened one, the first thing I came upon was a note she wrote me on my 50th birthday chronicling her memories of the day I was born. . .
Several days later, when I could stand to get back to the boxes and determined to get a little deeper into them this time, I found a cache of memorabilia from my grandfather, William J. Henry, who practiced optometry his whole life in northern Ohio. I found a business card with "op-tom-e-try" spelled out phonetically in the upper right corner, presumably so that recipients of the card would know how to pronounce his profession. I found the letter from then-AOA President, H. Ward Ewalt, Jr., to Dr. Henry, bestowing AOA life membership on him. And then I hit the real pay dirt. There were annotated page proofs of issues of Optometric Weekly from the 1930s. Each one featured an opening article called "Let's Question That!" by "Dr. William J. Henry, Akron O.," complete with the author's mark-ups.
I read,
"After attending the three-day Ohio state convention I am still not quite ready completely to follow the instruction of this 'New Optometry' and throw away all old ideas and cleave only to that which is not over five years of age. I hope I will never get too old to accept new ideas. We should seek new ideas, constantly, but let's put every new idea through as severe a test as we can conceive, and prove whether or not it is worthy of adoption."Another article began,
"It seems to me that it is high time to look facts in the face. To reason among ourselves. To experiment and analyze the different steps in this technique that has been brought to us. Just because someone tells me something is so, is no reason why I have to believe it. I, as a human being, have every right to question every statement made to me. So have you. It is not only our right and privilege, it is a duty we owe to our patients, to see the truth; and we should prove to ourselves whether or not that which is held up to us for the truth is the truth."Yet another article ends with, "Don't take anyone's word for anything-doubt-experiment-prove for yourself." All three passages sound like evidence-based optometry along with the application of clinical wisdom or "Today's Research, Tomorrow's Practice®," don't you think?
My grandfather ("Gumpy" to me, "Grandpa Doc" to the rest of the family, "Base-in Bill" to his optometric colleagues) would have loved Academy Fellows and those who aspire to be Academy Fellows. He would have reveled in the enthusiastic attendance at the Annual Meeting lectures in Boston, thinking of all those optometrists going home and taking better care of their patients because of what they learned. He would have thoroughly enjoyed the high-flying ocular imaging presentations by Fellows Larry Thibos, Michael Twa, and Kathryn Richdale in the "Ezell Fellows Presents" session. He would have horned in on hallway debates about the best treatment for a patient with keratoconus, or convergence insufficiency, or early diabetic retinopathy, or where to go for dinner.
'Tis the perfect season, between Academy Annual Meetings, to renew your intellectual pursuits, to question everything. Resolve to read each month's issue of Optometry and Vision Science, cover to cover. Promise yourself you'll get that lecture submission in by the February 2 deadline. Brainstorm with some colleagues about who to nominate for the Academy Awards, due in early April. Start thinking about your scientific program abstract for Phoenix before the May 1-31 submission window. Get in touch with that candidate for Fellowship you met in Boston and encourage her to finish up her case report and submit it to Fellow Pete Russo's hard-working Admittance Committee for consideration. Dig out the contact information for that third year optometry student who might be looking for a job come summer 2013 and invite him to visit your practice. Review your notes and musings from the Boston meeting, and use the information to deliver even better eye care to your patients. Doubt, experiment, prove. Question that.
P.S. In addition to the family historical connection, the old issues of Optometric Weekly were a hoot and a half. Next to one of Gumpy's articles was a news item that stated, "The Indiana Association of Optometrists. . .Zone 7 is contemplating a vigorous, educational advertising campaign, to put optometry in the minds of the public." The more things change, the more they remain the same.
