SEATTLE IN OCTOBER: STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE

For the past thirty years, I have had the pleasure of attending the annual meeting of our Academy. These meetings have been the highlight of my professional life. Academy meetings have improved my clinical practice, enhanced my knowledge in order to better teach my students and residents, and enriched my personal life through the development of life-long friendships with Fellows from many states and countries. Our Academy has been my personal professional compass, guiding me in my career as I continually strive to provide excellence in patient care and teaching. The 92nd annual meeting of our American Academy of Optometry promises to be another exciting educational experience. Our Lectures and Workshops Committee, under the guidance of Gay Tokumaru, has put together an outstanding program on a range of topics that provide the opportunity to both enhance your knowledge and apply that knowledge toward improved patient care. Presently, our Scientific Program Committee, lead by Michael Twa, is reviewing the abstracts of new discoveries, studies, and insights in clinical optometry and vision science. The submissions they select will be presented in our papers and poster sessions, which is at the heart of our mission as we provide Today's Research for Tomorrow's Practice. In addition, our Sections and SIGs have developed unique symposia with focused presentations from experts on timely topics with direct clinical application. Our Plenary Session will highlight the advancements in stem cell research with potential new ocular treatments in both corneal and retinal disease, led by international leaders in these fields. Our Awards Program includes the Glenn A. Fry and Charles F. Prentice Lectures where distinguished international leaders in ophthalmic research will outline their significant advancements of knowledge in eye care and vision science. Our Residents Day program provides a review of interesting cases and their management in both oral case reports and clinical posters. The highlight of our meeting is clearly the ability to meet, greet, and catch up with friends and colleagues from across the nation and the world, as well as the opportunity to greet our class of new Fellows at the Fellowship Banquet on Saturday evening. Please make plans to join me in Seattle from Wednesday, October 23 through Saturday, October 26, 2013. Make our meeting YOUR meeting, as we challenge ourselves to strive for professional excellence.

TRAVELS TO BOSTON AND MALAGA

Boston was the site of the most recent meeting of our Academy's Board of Directors. It was also marathon weekend in Boston. We shared our hotel with many of the runners who had come with their families to watch mom, dad, sister, or brother run in the big race on Monday. Young children were inquiring why mom or dad did not choose the treadmill with warmth of the workout room, rather than the cold and damp weather outside for their Friday work out. Some of us even wandered over to the finish line a few days before the event to grab an evening meal.  

 

The city was alive with the anticipation of the celebration of this famous race where participation is valued as much as winning. We departed on Sunday; some of us early in the morning, others later in the day after walking the streets filled with runners completing their pre-race rituals. We were all shocked by the news that such a celebration and family gathering was violated by such a tragic event. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with those whose loved ones were killed or injured in this senseless act of violence.

 

After I left Boston I headed to Malaga, Spain, the site of the combined meetings of the European Academy of Optometry and Optics, the European Council of Optometry and Optics, the World Council of Optometry (WCO), and the Spanish General Council of Optometry. This coalition of meetings brought together over 300 optometrists and opticians from over 40 countries. I primarily attended the European  Academy of Optometry and Optics meeting.  

 

I met with many of our European colleagues and had the opportunity to have thoughtful discussions with many of our European Fellows. Our Academy Fellows hold key leadership positions in the European Academy of Optometry and Optics, with Paul Murphy succeeding Roger Crelier as President, as well as Ellen Svarverud, Annemieke Coops, and Marten Fortuin serving on the Board of Directors. Among those honored with Fellowship in the European Academy were American Fellow Andrea Müller-Treiber and Fellow Candidate Caroline Christie.

 

Tim McMahon primarily attended the WCO meeting and will serve as one of the North American representatives on the WCO Governing Board for the next two years. Academy Fellows are well represented within the WCO, with Susan Cooper succeeding Tone Garaas-Maurdalen as President and George Woo completing his term as Immediate Past President. In addition, Pete Kehoe is the new Treasurer replacing Richard Wallingford, who has served in that role for the past six years.  

 

Other Fellows serving in leadership roles include Committee Chairs Jerry Lowther for Education and Kovin Naidoo for Public Health, and Uduak Udom and Carly Lam who serve on the WCO Governing Board. Brien Holden gave a rousing keynote address at the European Academy of Optometry and Optics meeting and was honored with the Distinguished Service Award of the World Council of Optometry.

 

Our Fellows are engaged in service to optometry throughout the world.
[To Top]

THE PASSING OF A GENERATION

Over the last 30 years, I have provided eye care to America's veterans. Early in my career the mainstay of my patients were WWII veterans. Over the years, I have been honored to serve those who participated in many of the major conflicts of that struggle: Pearl Harbor, Corregidor, Batan, Midway, Guadalcanal, Sicily, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Bougainville, New Guinea, Omaha Beach, Saipan, Battle of the Bulge, and Iwo Jima. They never spoke of their individual contributions or thought of themselves as heroes. They just did their duty as best they could. Their spirit was characterized by a Marine who lost an eye in combat and had glaucoma in his only eye. When I was about to complete the request for the VA to purchase his eyeglasses he told me, "Just put my prescription on that other form, I can buy my own glasses. Save that one for those who need it!"

While over 16 million Americans served in WWII, there are only a little over a million of them still living. Last month a very special WWII veteran passed away, my Dad. He was a devoted family man who with my mother created within our home a place of unconditional love and support, a place to retreat from the realities of life, a place to tend to scars from the challenges of life, and a place to nurture self-confidence. While deeply saddened by the loss of this remarkable man, I am truly blessed for the many years of this wonderful life he shared with me and the remarkable life he gave to me. He quietly and effectively set a standard of integrity, love and devotion to family, warmth and respect to friends and acquaintances, which I will honor as I make my meager attempt to emulate him. He was a man of few words; he quietly set an example of how to live. His only words of advice to me came as I was departing on my honeymoon. He simply said, "Take good care of her."

Our Academy has also experienced a passing of a generation as none of the present board members have any direct knowledge of our early Academy leaders. It is only our mentors, many of whom we have lost over these past few years, who had the benefit of knowing some of the legendarily early Academy leaders such as Carel Koch. We must build on the legacy of these past leaders and chart the course for the future of the Academy and our profession. This past generation has provided us with this wonderful profession of modern optometry. Perhaps we could benefit from the example of this passing generation by being a bit more self-less in our actions and working toward the common good of the profession as we heed my father's words of advice, "Take good care of her."

[To Top]

GIVING RECOGNITION TO THE BEST OF THE BEST: THE ACADEMY AWARDS

We all appreciate a kind word or a note of recognition for our efforts and accomplishments. Particularly when the acknowledgement is from someone we admire or value in a special way. When professional achievements are honored by a respected group of accomplished colleagues, this is usually the source of exceptional pride. Thus, our Academy seeks to honor those who have achieved noteworthy levels of sustained excellence with significant contributions to the profession of optometry or the field of vision science. Chris Johnson and the Awards Committee will soon begin deliberations to identify those who will be honored at our Awards Program on Friday, October 25, 2013 in Seattle, WA.

This cannot happen, however, without first identifying those individuals who deserve our thanks and recognition for their high level of devotion and attainment. So take this opportunity to review the criteria for our awards and nominate qualified and deserving individuals. Their contributions have gone unappreciated long enough! The deadline for the submission of nominations for our Academy and American Optometric Foundation awards is April 1, 2013.

In addition to our traditional awards listed below, the Academy has a new award—the Vincent Ellerbrock Clinical Educator Award.

Vincent Ellerbrock Clinician Educator Award – recognizes a distinguished clinician who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the Academy’s Lectures and Workshops Program. Individuals considered for this award will be widely recognized by both Academy peers and the profession for their clinical expertise and willingness to share their knowledge for the benefit of improved patient care. Awardees are required to be active in direct patient care. Additional contributions to the ophthalmic literature relative to sharing clinical knowledge may also be considered.

***

Charles F. Prentice Medal Award - recognizes a distinguished scientist or clinician scientist in recognition of a career-long record of advancement of knowledge in vision science. The recipient need not be a Fellow of the Academy nor an optometrist.

Glenn A. Fry Award (AOF) - given to a distinguished scientist or clinician scientist (typically mid-career stage) in recognition of the quality, significance, impact, and relevance to optometry of his or her current research contributions. The recipient need not be a Fellow of the Academy nor an optometrist.

Irvin M. and Beatrice Borish Award - recognizes an outstanding young scientist or clinician scientist (usually in the first 6 years of their career) who has shown exceptional promise to conduct independent research directly related to etiology, prevention, detection, diagnosis, or management of clinical ocular disorders. The recipient need not be a Fellow of the Academy nor an optometrist.

Essilor Award for Outstanding International Contributions to Optometry - recognizes an individual(s) or organization whose direct efforts and contributions have resulted in unquestionably significant and extraordinary advances in optometry and eye care internationally.

William Feinbloom Award - presented to an individual who has made a distinguished and significant contribution to clinical excellence and the direct clinical advancement of visual and optometric service and thus, the visual enhancement of the public. The recipient need not be a Fellow of the Academy nor an optometrist.

Carel C. Koch Memorial Medal Award - awarded to a person who has made outstanding contributions to the enhancement and development of relationships between optometry and other professions. The recipient need not be a Fellow of the Academy nor an optometrist.

Eminent Service Award - honors those who have rendered extraordinary and/or distinguished long-term service to the Academy.

Honorary Fellowship - honors individuals who are not Academy Fellows for distinguished contributions to the Academy and/or the science and art of optometry.

Life Fellowship - recognition to Fellows who have rendered distinguished service to the science and art of optometry.

Also included, but nominated by deans and presidents of the Schools and Colleges of Optometry is the Michael G. Harris Family Award for Excellence in Optometric Education (AOF) and the Julius F. Neumueller Award in Optics (AOF).

May we have your nominations, please?

[To Top]

THANK YOU FOR SHARING...WE ARE LISTENING!

I have a confession to make. I am not really a survey person. Political poll results have never and probably never will include my opinion. My lack of cooperation with completing surveys includes department stores, sandwich shops, hotels, airlines, and new products. Occasionally I am tempted to put aside my resolve that my opinion is not really all that important to the world and I give in to the process of sharing my impression of the product or service. Then about half way through the survey there is a question regarding the issue that motivated me to start the survey in the first place; however, to my eternal frustration there is no answer consistent with my opinion. A few may be close, but not close enough! So rather than give an answer that does not truly reflect my opinion, I do not complete the survey and remind myself why I should not have started the survey in the first place. There are only a few exceptions to my no survey policy and that includes professional organizations that I truly value, which includes our Academy.

Your Academy staff, annual meeting volunteer leaders, and board of directors spent a great deal of time reviewing the results of the post-meeting survey from the recent Academy Meeting in Phoenix. More than 38% of meeting attendees completed the survey. Based on your responses, the Academy staff and volunteers are considering what corrective action or program enhancements might be enacted to improve our annual meeting. In addition, each and every response to the open ended questions and comment sections were reviewed.

We heard you loud and clear that while you are willing to provide us with course evaluations to improve and maintain the quality of our course offerings at future meetings, you do NOT want the course evaluations to be required. While evaluations are critical for ongoing improvement, they will no longer be made mandatory. The exhibit hall lunch program will be improved to serve the growing number of attendees at the meeting. Consideration to slightly alter the exhibit hall hours to allow more interaction between our attendees and our exhibitors is underway. You reminded us that as our Plenary Session has grown, there is a clear need for more screens positioned so that everyone can comfortably see the slides during the presentation.

There were many other helpful comments that we will take to heart as we continuously strive to improve the quality of our annual meeting and the service we provide to our Fellowship and the profession. My favorite response to the reason for attending the meeting was “desire to support the Academy.”

Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your valued input. Furthermore, I would like to encourage those who adopted my usual non-survey participatory strategy to please let us know what you are thinking—positive reinforcement or valued suggestions for improvement are welcome here.

[To Top]

ACADEMY TRADITION V. CHANGE

There is nothing unique about our Academy in this regard: human beings are resistant to change. Change forces us to abandon our “tried and true” ways and move into a new zone of uncertainty where the outcome appears to be unclear. Uncertainty makes us uncomfortable. There is the tendency for us to abandon the new initiative without giving it a fair trial and to retreat to our old familiar habits, even if they are less effective than the proposed change.

Nevertheless, it is clear that change is inevitable. This has been well documented since ancient time as Heraclitus in 513 B.C. observed, “There is nothing permanent except change.” We all recognize that our Academy must change in order to grow and remain relevant to our profession. So how do we reconcile this conflict between the certainty of change and our comfort with the status quo?
This reminds us of the old baseball adage: you can’t steal second base with your foot on first. Yet, we can’t be complacent with both feet safely placed on first base. We need to be comfortable taking a lead off first, be vigilant for any attempt to pick us off, and choose wisely and decisively on which pitch to attempt to steal second.

While being respectful of the culture and treasured traditions of our Academy and our profession, we must embrace change that moves our organization and profession forward. One clear example is the decision to move our annual meeting from the time-honored and traditional Academy dates in early or mid-December to the present October/November time frame. There has certainly been some downside to this change, such as the conflict with other local and regional meetings.

But as busy as things might have been for those of us who attended our meeting in Phoenix in October this year, just think how nice it has been to have the last two weekends at home as you and your family prepare for your holiday celebrations. No working on posters and courses over Thanksgiving. No pre-holiday fatigue from just having arrived home this last weekend. Furthermore, since this change was implemented six years ago, our Academy has had five of our most successful meetings. Undoubtedly, this decision has also afforded Happier Holidays for our Academy Fellows, staff, and our families.

Happy Holidays to all, and a very happy, healthy New Year!

[To Top]

TEMPE THOUGHTS

On the Sunday morning following the Phoenix Academy Meeting, as many of you dashed to Sky Harbor Airport or discovered your stay in Phoenix was extended due to superstorm Sandy, I was strolling across the Mill Street Bridge in Tempe with Jack, Seth, Eric, Ben, Channing, Alexis, and their families, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. Over 16,000 of us participated in the Arizona Walk for Autism Speaks raising $1.4 million to fight this disorder whose clinical presentation, social challenges, and research prospects were so eloquently summarized to us during our Plenary Session by Drs. Ricki Robinson and David Amaral.

Planes flying overhead caused my thoughts to drift to my Academy Fellows returning home after joining us for another successful meeting. This was our third largest meeting with over 3,000 optometrists and 5,000 total registrants. High quality courses, superb symposia outlining critical clinical thinking to improve patient care, thought provoking clinical case presentations and clinical studies in the poster sessions, papers providing new discoveries in clinical and vision science, and a robust exhibit hall are the essence of our meeting. All of you who contributed to the success of this meeting should be congratulated. Yet, the formal induction of 204 new Fellows of the Academy was the pinnacle of the event. At the banquet we welcomed them into our Fellowship along with their commitment to life long learning and expanding their knowledge to provide improved patient care.

When we turned for the return trip across Tempe Lake, my attention returned to those walking with me. The love and concern of friends, family, and neighbors was evident as all were united in this common case. As I walked with Kyla discussing the new school and program that her son started attending this year, it became clear that she and her husband were firmly dedicated to a long-term commitment to make the best life possible for their son. And while all parents strive to make a good life for their children, the added challenge of having a son with Autism Spectrum Disorder requires a constant and full commitment to that vision.

Then my thoughts and reflections drifted back to my Academy week. What is the level of our commitment to our Academy and our profession? Is it one of convenience that can be disrupted by the first sign of discomfort? Or is it a more robust commitment that can be sustained and enhanced by professional and personal challenges?
[To Top]