Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,
This will be my last “Weekly Update" of this decade, as we get ready to bring in 2020. Instead of looking into the rearview mirror back at all the great things that happened in 2019, I’d like to look forward and share some thoughts for the upcoming year.
As we close out this decade, I want to sincerely thank our world-class faculty for the work they do every day in making our institution shine brighter than our peers, to our students for selecting Salus and entrusting us with your professional futures, to our staff for ensuring we all can perform our jobs efficiently, in a a comfortable environment, to our Board of Trustees, for their time, wisdom, philanthropic generosity and vision in helping to move us forward and finally to our alumni and friends who have guided and enabled us in many ways by volunteering your time to serve on committees and Advisory Boards, your philanthropy, guidance and other support.
For my optometric colleagues, 2020 will be something special. How many times to we get to celebrate the year of the optometrist, in a sense? What an opportunity to market the wonderful attributes of the optometric profession during the year of 2020! Every one of us is an informed spokesman and we should take every opportunity to educate people about the fact that optometry is THE primary eye care profession in the United States, providing comprehensive eye care to virtually everyone in our population from birth through death. With an aging population that, unfortunately, has a high prevalence of diabetes and hypertension, access to comprehensive optometric care is essential.
On the other end of the spectrum, caring for children with vision disorders helps to prepare them for learning that will enable them to succeed throughout their lives. Of course, there are contact lenses, low vision, dry eye, ocular disease, neuro-optometry, and many other clinical areas optometrists are expert in which makes this profession so vibrant and adaptable to multiple lifestyles and practice models. 2020 – The Year of the Optometrist – let’s all help to energize that!
To that end, I’d also like to challenge our PCO alumni to direct any young person you know to take a look at optometry as a possible profession for them to consider. After all, who better knows more about the exciting attributes of this wonderful profession than you?
2020 will be an extremely exciting and interesting year. As our students and faculty prepare to come back to campus next week, I ask that them embrace all that’s happening around us and come back rested, energized and ready to take on whatever comes your way! To our Alumni, let’s make this a year where you really have a positive impact on the future of our profession by helping to strengthen our applicant pool.
Wishing everyone has a very Happy and Healthy New Year!
Mike
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