Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,
Greetings from someplace over the western U.S. Drs. Eckert, Kruemmling and I are headed back from some whirlwind travel that has taken us to Loma Linda University in California and Baylor University in Texas over the past few days. That was in addition to a trip we made to Chicago a few weeks ago to visit Northwestern University. These three institutions have what most experts in the field consider to be the leading programs in Orthotics and Prosthetics (O&P) in the country.
We’ve been checking out these programs to determine if an O&P program would be a good fit for Salus as we begin planning for the next step in our institutional evolution. All indications are that O&P would not only be a great fit at Salus but also help to fill a much needed workforce and training gap in that profession, given the relative scarcity of programs (there are only 13 in the country, with only 2 on the East Coast) and an increasing demand for that skillset nationally. That’s compounded by the fact that about 25% of the current O&P workforce is projected to retire within the next several years. I’ll keep you all posted as we continue with our due diligence moving forward.
In the middle of all that travel, on Wednesday, Dr. Eckert and I had the opportunity to visit with Jack Lynch, the CEO of Main Line Health and several members of his team to see if we could obtain additional clinical rotations for some of our programs in their health system. Main Line includes Bryn Mawr Rehab and Hospital, Paoli and Riddle Hospitals, Lankenau Medical Center as well as several smaller centers. As a result of the meeting, their administrators are going to be working with some of our program and external rotation directors to see if we can identify rotations that are not only required and educationally relevant, but also sustainable. As competition for these rotations continues to increase regionally, establishing these types of relationships are key to keeping our students local and at the same time, meeting their clinical education needs. We’re hopeful that something fruitful will come out of these meetings!
Closer to home, thirty-five prospective students attended the annual Optometry Learning Experience (OLE) the week of Jan. 6, 2020, at the University's Elkins Park, Pa., campus. The OLE program, which has been part of the University's Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) for approximately four decades, is designed to offer participants an opportunity to step into the shoes of students in the Doctor of Optometry program, as well as offer a general outlook on the profession of optometry as a whole.
Submissions are now being sought for Community Expressions 2020, featuring the work of Salus University faculty, students, alumni, staff, spouses and significant others, that will be exhibited from Feb. 4 through March 13 at the Hafter Student Community Center. Participants can write to Elynne Rosenfeld at erosenfeld@salus.edu and should include:
- Name of artist
- Title of work
- Dimensions of work
- Media used
- Price (or indicate not for sale)
- Affiliation with Salus University or the relationship of someone who is affiliated
- Three- to five-sentence statement that can be used for publicity purposes
The deadline for submitting this information is Wednesday, Jan. 29. Drop-off of the artwork is from 11 a.m. to noon on Tuesday, Feb. 4, at the Hafter Center. Pick-up is Friday, March 13, or by arrangement over the weekend.
Robert M. DiSogra, AuD '03, has been selected to receive the Clinical Excellence in Audiology award for 2020 from the American Academy of Audiology. The award is based on Dr. DiSogra's contributions to the fields of audiology and pharmacology focusing on ototoxicity and diabetic ear. The award will be presented in April at the annual meeting of the Academy in New Orleans. Dr. DiSorgra is the former chairman of the Osborne College of Audiology Advisory Board.
Eight students from the National Optometric Student Association (NOSA) from Salus participated in the annual Greater Philadelphia Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service - one of the largest King Day events in the nation - on Monday, Jan. 20, at Girard College. The students conducted vision screenings, which included testing visual acuity, checking eye muscle issues in the eye with the direct ophthalmoscope and letting patients know if they needed further evaluation.
On Wednesday January 22, Dr. Elise Ciner and Kerry Lueders presented to the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee for the Education of Students who are Blind or Visually Impaired (PACES-BVI). Entitled "VT and TVI: The Difference is More Than Just the I", this interprofessional presentation clarified the roles of optometry and education for students who are visually impaired and how to meet the functional and educational needs of those children referred for vision therapy.
I’ll bet most people on campus don’t know that we started a post-baccalaureate last fall and have 13 really great students enrolled in the program. As we get to the part of the year where they are beginning to apply for their professional programs such as optometry, PA, dentistry, occupational therapy and others, I want to wish them luck (although, I know they won’t need it) as they prepare to move to the next step in their educational journeys.
On Monday, our Board of Trustees will be on campus for their quarterly meeting in our newly renovated Board/Multipurpose room (W400). We will also be hosting a social for board members on Sunday in Hafter Center. Having our extremely talented volunteer board members on campus gives us the opportunity to show them all the great things that are going on around campus and also provides us with extremely helpful insights and guidance as we move Salus forward. We greatly appreciate all of their time, talents and financial support.
Finally, it looks like at least half of the weekend is going to be rainy and cool so that’s a good day to hunker down and get some studying done! For those of you who are getting out and about, please be careful and look out for one another. Have a great weekend – I look forward to seeing many of you on Monday for our quarterly Board meeting.
Mike
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