It’s been another busy week at Salus as we get ready to launch a new group of optometric residents later today! As the summer semester moves into high gear, our students are out and about, learning and practicing in our state-of-the art labs and classrooms and taking care of patients in our clinics around the city.
I want to offer a heartfelt congratulations to our 38 PCO residents who are graduating later today. Over the past couple of days, we held the annual PCO/Salus Resident's Days where each resident had the opportunity to present lectures on topics including glaucoma, neuro-optometry, anterior segment disease, low vision, contact lenses, pediatrics, vision therapy and traumatic brain injury. All in all, our residents offered faculty, staff and alumni over 9 hours of COPE approved CE. Resident's Days will culminate with graduation and a dessert reception in the Hafter Student and Community Center at 1:00 p.m. today. Everyone is invited to attend.
Today we welcome some prospective audiology students who are visiting Salus as a part of our Audiology Learning Experience (ALE). The students have the opportunity to see a clinical skills demonstration, tour our campus and the Pennsylvania Ear Institute, receive admissions advising, participate in a faculty panel, and more. If you see them around please say hello!
We recently rolled out SIPQ, the Salus Interprofessional Questionnaire at the Pennsylvania Ear Institute and The Eye Institute’s Chestnut Hill and Falls Center satellites. SIPQ asks patients about vision, hearing, balance, speech and language, voice, and swallowing symptoms they may be experiencing. When fully launched, SIPQ will foster greater collaboration between the clinical facilities of Salus University Health and a more patient-centered approach to care. Kudos to our early adopters! Your experience with SIPQ and your feedback are vital to its success. Special thanks to Drs. Karen Hansen, Lindsay Bondurant, Maria Parisi and Bob Serianni for spearheading this important initiative.
Next Tuesday, take some time to visit the Learning Resource Center from 12:00 p.m - 2:00 p.m. to learn about “Strength Against Stress”. Led by a nutrition expert, you can learn how to strengthen yourself against stress with nutrients that help us stay balanced and focused - and sample some delicious piña colada chia pudding!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the 75th anniversary of D-Day that was yesterday. On June 6th, 1944 allied forces, under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, executed the largest ever amphibious and airborne invasion the world has ever seen on to the beaches of Normandy, France to begin the liberation of Europe from Nazi forces. Code named, “Operation Overlord” D-Day is often considered one of the most important days in the 20th century as more than 11,000 aircraft, 5,000 ships and over 160,000 allied soldiers from the U.S. Great Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Czechoslovakia, Norway and Poland were assembled to thwart the Nazi war machine. Confronted with fierce Nazi resistance, resulting in an estimated 10,000 casualties and over 4,000 killed, these members of what has been labeled, “The Greatest Generation”, persevered and established a beachhead that would facilitate the beginning of the end of Hitler’s Nazi regime. It’s important to remember what these heroes accomplished on this day and those days following the invasion to ensure that liberty and freedom would be restored in Nazi held territories. These sacrifices have allowed us to live in relative peace, economic prosperity and freedom that has lasted for seventy five years. Let’s not forget the lessons of the past and the fact that because brave men and women gave their lives back then, we have the opportunities we currently enjoy here and elsewhere in the world. (see attached photos)
Finally, I will be taking a 2 week break from our Salus Weekly Update as Tanis and I will be getting some R&R in the Baltic Region. Enjoy the weekend and make sure you take some time to reflect on those sacrifices made by our fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers during World War II and other conflicts, and if you can, thank them for all they did to give us the freedoms and liberties we now enjoy.
Mike
