Raising Awareness in DC: Week of April 12th

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Member and Friends,

Greetings from Salus where Spring is in full bloom and our new stock of goslings are floating around our pond. Between some of our students taking exams and others on spring break, the campus has appeared to be pretty quiet this week although there’s lots going on!

Earlier in the week, about twenty students and I headed down to Washington DC, along with 600 other Doctors of Optometry and students to bring the American Optometric Association’s pro-patient, pro-access message to nearly all of the 535 members of the 116th Congress. During that time, we had the opportunity to brief members of Congress on important issues and pending legislation that included:

• Fighting costly health and vision plan abuses
• Stopping the FTC's unnecessary contact lens paperwork proposal
• Making the contact lens prescription verification process simpler and safer
• Supporting essential vision, eye health care for veterans by continuing to fight for better vision and eye health care for America's veterans
• Preserving the doctor-patient relationship, legislation that argues for the appropriate use of tele-health services as a supplement to high-value, high-quality eye and vision care.

Our students carried the day in discussions with legislative staffers and a few principles. While these visits don’t guarantee support, they certainly raise awareness of key issues facing our patients and the profession, overall.

On Thursday, Dr. Stephen Pugliese, our liaison representative from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), our University accrediator, spent most of the day at Salus as one of the first steps in the self-study review process with MSCHE. The process plays a vital role in the University’s ongoing planning, assessment, and accreditation and provides the opportunity to document Salus University’s impact and effectiveness as an institution of higher education. In addition to meeting with me, several Board of Trustee members and our MSCHE internal Steering Group, there was also an open forum for student leadership, faculty and staff which was extremely well-attended.

On Thursday evening, the Sports Vision Club hosted a webinar with the Sports Vision Pros - three prominent optometrists in the sports vision field - where they discussed cases and hot topics commonly seen in sports vision.

On Saturday, Salus Physician Assistant students will take part in the PA Olympics - with other area PA programs - at the Bamboo Gardens in Vincentown, NJ. Games will include “Dodge the Flu", “Egg Speculum”, and Trivia. Good luck!

Also, on Saturday, from 10AM – noon, we will be hosting “A Conversation with Veterans” along with State Representatives Steve McCarter and Jared Solomon.  The goal of the forum is to identify some of the challenges Veterans in the local area might be having and discuss possible solutions.  If you’re interested in hearing the discussions, please join us in the Lombardi Classroom.

To celebrate #NationalFoodMonth, why not get cookin’ with our throwback to the Pennsylvania College of Optometry Out of Sight Recipe book - published in 1994. If you try one of the recipes we pulled - take a photo and tag us!

Finally, only a couple of short weeks until our CentennialGala. I’m extremely excited about honoring all of our Presidential Awardees on the 26^th, as well as the party on the 27^th! I hope you all have purchased your tickets and got your dancing shoes all shined and ready to go. We’ve got over 400 people registered for the event which is going to fill that room at the Hilton!  

Have a great weekend.  Be safe, have some fun and look out for one another!

Mike