Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and our many Friends,
Greetings from sunny Horsham, PA, where we finally are experiencing nice Spring day! Even in the midst of the pandemic, it’s so nice to have beautiful morning to get out and exercise!
One of silver linings of the pandemic is that we’ve really begun to harness the power of online continuing education. Last week we did our first virtual Grand Rounds with over 120 people participating. Thanks to Drs. Candice Evernden and Megan Rother for providing two exceptional inaugural lectures and to Dr. Vitek and our ICE department for putting this all together!
Speaking of CE, on Sunday, May 17, 2020 optometrists can earn 6 COPE approved credits by virtually attending our annual Glaucoma Symposium. You can register for the event here.
Last Saturday five students from our Physician Assistant Studies program were a big part of a delivery chain that helped get much needed PPEs from South Carolina to Temple University Hospital. We’re so proud of our student Morgan Lukievics, Allison Tomack, Elizabeth Scott, Marina Brown and Kimberly McCarty, all ’20PA, who answered the call for volunteers from the National Student Response Network (NSRN) and really helped make a difference. Read more about this great effort by our students on our website by clicking here.
In the College of Education and Rehabilitation, our Blindness and Low Vision Studies (BLVS) program renewed its partnership with the Northeast Pennsylvania Lions Service Foundation (NEPALSF), which will make $25,000 available to support students in our programs. The result of this partnership will help to increase services to individuals with visual impairments, particularly in the northeast region of Pennsylvania. In other news from the program, Orientation & Mobility student Sherri Hoffert has received this year's AER Blasch O&M Scholarship award, and BLVS adjunct faculty member Shelly Faust-Jones has received the 2020 Penn-Del AER Richard L. Welsh Service Award.
We continue our salute to Better Hearing and Speech Month with Part II of “Raising Awareness About Communications Disorders”. Read more about that here; and with a Faculty Focus feature on Dr. Lindsay Bondurant, the director of the Pennsylvania Ear Institute.
Dr. Bhawan Minhas, director of our on-campus Residency Programs since 2016, has received the Alumni Association’s 2020 “Distinguished Service Award.” This award is presented to a non-alumnus who is closely identified with Salus and who has provided notable service to the University and their profession. I can’t think of any more deserving individual! Read more about Dr. Minhas here.
We recently partnered with St. Joseph’s University to offer students, faculty and staff additional opportunities to earn advanced healthcare business certifications, online and in person, without considerable interruption to individual schedules. Read more about how you can leverage this partnership here.
One of our faculty members recently sent me a copy of a very heartwarming Ted Talk by Eddie Jaku, a 99-year old Holocaust survivor, that’s well worth taking the 11+ minutes to listen to. When we look at all that’s going on around us today, it’s so important to put things into proper perspective and be thankful for what we have, even in the middle of a pandemic. Listening to how this man survived the Holocaust and today claims to be the “happiest man alive” is both inspiring and instructional. If you want to smile and be uplifted, even if just a bit, I encourage you to take a few minutes and check out Eddie’s story here.
On Monday our volunteer Board of Trustees will be holding their first ever (I believe) virtual quarterly meeting. Throughout this public health emergency, our Board has been fully engaged ready to offer advice, counsel and support as we’ve made many difficult decisions moving forward. We owe them a debt of thanks for their time and talents as they are also having to deal with the same challenges we are in their own businesses and personal worlds, in addition to their work with Salus.
Finally, next Friday we will celebrate the many accomplishments of almost 300 Salus graduates during our virtual commencement ceremony. Please join us as we honor and pay tribute to our Class of 2020 on May 22nd at 2 PM right here.
As you prepare for what looks to be a pretty nice weekend, I encourage you to get out and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. Remember to wear your face mask if you’re going to be around others or inside a store. Continue with frequent hand-washing and practicing social distancing. While we don’t have a definite date from Governor Wolf yet, I’m encouraged by the decreasing numbers of cases we’ve seen in both the Commonwealth and our county.
Like Mr. Jaku in the Ted Talk, try to put things into perspective as we work our way through this emergency together as one team, One Salus. We are SALUS STRONG and before we know it, we’ll be back on campus defining our next normal.
Be safe, be smart, stay healthy!
Mike
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