Back from Budapest: Week of July 20th

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

It’s great to be back at Salus after my week in Budapest. While I learned a great deal and really enjoyed the city, it’s always great to get back home where there is a lot going on, as usual!

I’d like to welcome our second-year optometry class back to campus. I know that you’ve already jumped into classes and clinical studies, which I’m sure has been both challenging and exciting. Your summer will go quickly! 

Starting Saturday, July 21st, the Osborne College of Audiology (OCA) will host its 6th annual Hands-On-Summer Workshop, with the first one on "Electrophysiology in Audiology" followed by "Vestibular and Balance Disorders: Assessment and Rehabilitation". OCA's international AuD-Bridge students will be on-campus attending these workshops along with local audiologists. This should be a very rewarding experience for all involved. 

Congratulations to Dr. Jonette Owen, who was elected as the VP of Education for the Pennsylvania Academy of Audiology and Dr. Pienkowski for his article on "New Advances in Electrophysiology for Clinical and Basic Investigation," with his co-authors, to be published in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. Our faculty just keep knocking this out of the park!

Faculty and students from the Speech-Language Pathology, Occupational Therapy and Blindness and Low vision Studies programs from the College of Education and Rehabilitation participated in an Interprofessional Education workshop focusing on investigating universal design, a broad spectrum of ideas meant to produce buildings, products and environments that are accessible to people with and without disabilities in both our local and surrounding communities. This effort speaks to everything we believe at Salus about the integration of health services to benefit our patients and communities. Well done! 

On Tuesday and Wednesday members of our faculty, staff, student body and Board of Trustees got together for our first Scenario Planning workshop. The goal of these workshops is to develop scenarios that address what I call “alternate futures” that may affect higher education, healthcare, healthcare education, our student populations and other extrinsic forces that we need to be prepared to proactively address in the near and short-term. Once these scenarios have been fully developed, we’ll use them to inform our strategic thinking and ultimately our strategic plan as we continue to evolve as a premier health sciences university. I will be keeping you all up-to-date as this process continues.

Every year The Chronicle of Higher Education selects colleges and universities that are “Great Colleges to Work For.” I am extremely happy to tell you that we were selected amongst that special group based on our compensation and benefits package. Congratulations to Maura Keenan and her Human Resources staff as well as our senior and mid-level faculty and staff leadership teams.

Finally, it looks like it’s going to be a nice summer weekend - at least the first half of it. I don’t know what your plans are but on Saturday morning, but I’ll be participating in the New Jersey State Triathlon at Lake Mercer County Park. It should be a nice day for a swim, bike and run! 

You all be safe and watch out for one another and have a great weekend!

Mike

Greetings from Budapest: Week of July 16th

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

Greetings from Budapest, Hungary where I’ve been as part of my MBA program. It’s been an interesting week, having the opportunity to learn about how healthcare, law, education, IT and other businesses work in this country. We had the opportunity to visit the U.S. Embassy here where we got their perspective on Hungary’s economy and how Americans are positively viewed here. It was pretty enlightening. A real treat for me has been my early morning runs along the Danube and across the many bridges here. It’s a beautiful city. So enough about me…

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Dr. Kathleen Youse, who was elected as the next President of the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences (ANCDS) for a three year term. It’s great to see Salus represented in national organizations and this particular honor speaks to Kathleen's leadership and other professional skills. Congratulations!

I also want to congratulate our Blindness and Low Vision Studies on entering year two of their $75,000 grant partnership with the Northeast Pennsylvania Lions Service Foundation. This partnership was established to reduce the shortage of education and rehabilitation professionals in blindness and low vision in our Commonwealth. Well done!

I’ll be back in the office on Monday preparing for a busy week that involves welcoming guests from Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center at Sun Yat-sen University, China and kicking off our first scenario planning workshop.  

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Stay safe and look out for one another!

Mike

Soggy Elkins Park: Week of July 6th

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

Good morning from a soggy Elkins Park! I hope everyone had an enjoyable 4th of July holiday. I don’t know about you, but Wednesday felt like Sunday and yesterday felt like Monday, so today feels really good, even with the rain.

This week we welcomed our newest PCO Scholars students to campus. They spent the week getting oriented to their new program, jumping into their accelerated program with lots of smiles and energy. It was great to meet everyone from the class and learn about the very diverse backgrounds.  

On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Ear Institute (PEI) sponsored the Ladama, Latin America concert in Abington Art Center's World Music Concert Series. The University will also sponsor the last concert in the series on July 26, Sidi Toure, Mali. If you are looking for something interesting, fun and free to do, check it out.

Our Speech - Language Institute (SLI) will hold its Speakeasy Support Group from 12 to 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 7, in the clinic. And finally, Blindness and Low Vision Studies (BLVS) will honor their Alumna of the Year, Sister Lisa Ann Lettiere, IHM, MEd '00, TVI, COMS at a reception that will be held on Thursday, July 12 at 5:30 p.m. at the Hafter Center. 

Yesterday, I held my first of two quarterly University-wide meetings at The Eye Institute (TEI). Today I’ll be meeting with staff at the Elkins Park campus at 2:00 PM.  Yesterday we had a great discussion about the actions the American Optometric Association (AOA) says it’s taking concerning the optometric applicant pool. It appears they’re investing almost $1M into marketing the profession, which is great news. Apparently, we might have played a very key role in moving the needle on this. I can discuss this further at today’s meeting, if anyone is interested.

I’m off to Budapest, Hungary tomorrow as part of a Global Business Strategy course I’m taking in my MBA program. During the trip I’ll be visiting a medical services delivery business, the U.S. Embassy, an IT firm, an international law practice and a vineyard. These are all businesses that want to share lessons they’ve learned while working from Hungary in a global business environment. I’m really looking forward to the entire program. When I served as the Medical Advisor to NATO in my “former life” I had the opportunity to set up a NATO medical research command in Budapest, so it will be fun to go back.

I hope everyone has a great week. I’ll try to get an abridged “Weekly Update out next week.

Mike

Summer Has Finally Arrived: Week of June 29th

Students, Faculty, Residents, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

Greetings from a hot and steamy Elkins Park! Summer has finally arrived with lots of heat and humidity. Ah, the east coast!

Even with all the crazy weather, we haven’t lost sight of the fact that this month Salus is celebrating our 10th anniversary. Yup, the University is 10 years old! We’ve commemorated this with fun photo shoots at both our East Oak Lane and Elkins Park campuses.  Check out our Facebook page to see some of them. 

It’s a pretty neat time for us as we also prepare to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry next year. To help celebrate PCO’s 100th anniversary, at the alumni reception we hosted at Optometry’s Meeting in Denver last week, I challenged all alumni and friends to consider donating $100 to commemorate PCO’s 100 years to help raise scholarship dollars. It’s an idea that I think we should spread that idea around.

Closer to home, Caitlyn Foy, DOT, MOTR/L, has been accepted into the American Occupational Therapy Association’s Academic Leadership Institute where only 25 OTs in the country are accepted. Congratulations Caitlyn!

Finally, our country was built on courage, sacrifice, innovation, a willingness to welcome all newcomers, imagination and an unbeatable will and determination to get things done. As we prepare to celebrate the Nation’s 242^nd birthday next Wednesday, please take some time to consider what that means to you and to remember the many sacrifices that were made to ensure we have the freedoms we enjoy today.

I want to wish everyone a Happy 4^th of July and ask that you take some time to recharge your batteries and have some fun. 

Be safe and look out for one another!

Mike

Greetings from Denver: Week of June 22nd

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

Greetings from sunny Denver, Colorado where we are attending Optometry’s Meeting this week. It’s been a great week with our students, faculty and alumni making a splash here. Several of our alumni and faculty members are lecturing and volunteering to provide various services throughout the week. We have a Salus table in the Exhibit Hall and will be hosting an Alumni and Friends reception this evening at the Hyatt Regency at the Convention Center in Centennial Ballroom F from 5:00 - 6:30, where we will be honoring Dr. David McPhillips OD ’85 with the Albert Fitch Memorial Alumnus of the Year Award. We hope everyone from Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) that’s here in Denver can join us for this celebration.  

During the annual Essilor Optometric Student Bowl, Celeste Gomez ‘19OD represented Salus/PCO exquisitely - making it all the way to the final round, making us all proud!  It was great to see so many of our faculty and staff on-hand to watch this great event.  

On campus, the Speech-Languague Institute (SLI) is launching Autism Support Group for children and their families. The meetings will be held from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at SLI on June 28, July 5, July 12, and July 19. Summer classes and clinics continue as we prepare for August when we’ll be ready to welcome our new incoming classes.

Have a great weekend.  Be safe, have fun and look out for each other.

Mike

Productive Week at Salus: Week of June 8th

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

It’s been another productive week at Salus. 

I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days in Harrisburg, Pa., working with the Pennsylvania Optometric Association to discuss pending scope of practice and other legislation with our local state representatives and most recently met with the Deputy Secretary of Education and Commissioner of Post-Secondary Education, Noe Ortego, to introduce him and his staff to Salus, our programs and all we bring to the local community. I also discussed the importance of obtaining state funds to help offset tuition costs as well as clinical services we bring to our local communities. While we didn’t walk away with any buckets of money, we did succeed in gaining their attention, and hopefully, their support when the budget cycle begins. I also had the opportunity to meet with the Governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff to help gain support for a multi-million-dollar Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) grant we have applied for to help with classroom and laboratory technology improvements in addition to several other key projects we’d like to see completed over the next few years. Still no buckets of money were handed over, but it’s one more step in the process of letting everyone know all the great things that we’re doing here.

Closer to home, the Office of Admissions hosted eleven participants from several undergraduate institutions for the second annual Audiology Learning Experience (ALE) on Thursday and Friday. This is a program that offers participants the opportunity to investigate the academic study associated with the Doctor of Audiology program. We do a similar program for optometry as well. 

The University’s Student Occupational Therapy Association (SOTA) is holding its 2018 MuckFest MS 5K run through mud and obstacles in support of a world free of multiple sclerosis on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at 185 Glen Mills Rd. in Glen Mills, Pa. This is (obviously) a rain or shine event!

I will be “offline” next week as Tanis and I will be taking some R&R but will be back “online” the following week from Denver, where we’ll be attending Optometry’s Meeting, along with many of our faculty and students. For those of you who will be in Denver for the meeting, Dr. Trego will be hosting an Alumni and Friends Reception on Friday, June 22 from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, Centennial Ballroom F. We will be honoring this year’s Albert Fitch Memorial Alumnus of the Year, Dr. David R. McPhillips OD ’85. I hope to see many of you there!

Have a great weekend!
Mike

Happy June: Week of June 1st

Happy June everyone! The campus has been relatively quiet over the past week following all the activities around commencement last week. Even as the campus winds down a bit for the summer months there are still some classes in session and all of our clinics are open and busy.

In talking around campus, we believe that today marks 20th anniversary of when the Pennsylvania College of Optometry opened on the Elkins Park campus. That’s something to celebrate!

The Speech-Language Institute Speakeasy Support Group, otherwise known as the Laryngectomee/Throat Cancer Support Group, will meet tomorrow, June 2nd at 12 p.m. at the Speech-Language Institute.    

While the Elkins Park “Arts in the Park” has been postponed until June 10th, Salus will be represented there from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at High School Park, located at High School Road and Montgomery Avenue in Elkins Park. We hope folks can come out to both volunteer as well as to enjoy all the associated festivities.  

Construction continues on the second half of the Lombardi Classroom which will be ready for use by August. We’ve also just opened our new pediatric waiting room at The Eye Institute with completion of four new examination lanes due to be completed by June 15th.  It’s great to see the progress in each of these projects.

On Monday, many PCO students and faculty will be joining the ranks of the Pennsylvania Optometric Society in Harrisburg to educate our state legislators about optometry and why they should be support scope of practice and other related legislation. I too will be joining the group as I always enjoy watching our great students impress our local representatives with their knowledge of the issues and they way they professionally conduct themselves.

As we enter what looks to be a rainy, humid weekend, please try to take some time to enjoy yourselves, spend time with friends and loved ones and do something fun. Be safe and look out for each other.

Mike