Productive Time at Salus: Week of April 27th

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

I hope everyone has had a productive week. We certainly have had one at Salus.

I spent the beginning of the week in our nation’s capital, along with 15 of our students and members of the Pennsylvania and American Optometric Associations. We were there to educate and seek support from legislators and their staffs on priorities that directly affect optometry.  Those priorities included continuing pressure on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to withdraw its unnecessary, burdensome contact lens paperwork proposal for optometrists to have patients sign a document stating they’ve received their contact lens prescriptions, gaining new supporters for the American Optometric Association and American Dental Association-backed legislation to end health and vision plan abuses, and pushing back against efforts to downgrade and privatize Veteran’s optometric care and deploy a pilot telehealth program that could prove deleterious to Veteran’s health. Our students helped to carry the day as we went from appointment to appointment going over each issue.  It was fun and educational, all at the same time. I’ve attached a photo of part of our group in front of the U.S. Capital – to prove we were there!

In our College of Education and Rehabilitation, the Speech Language Institute’s Aphasia Support Group, led by Alison Finkelstein was highlighted by the National Aphasia Association and the Transgender Voice Group, led by Judy Koza, was highlighted by the Philadelphia Gay News. These are national and local platforms providing lots of great exposure for our SLI!  Bob Serianni and his crew of clinical educators never cease to amaze us! 

Congratulations to Dr. Lauren Sponseller, Director of the Occupational Therapy program, who recently graduated from the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) Academic Leadership Institute.  She is now a "Certified Leader in Academia" through AOTA. 

Students from the Mastery Charter School visited the Elkins Park campus on 26 April. They toured the campus and clinical skill labs and participated in a mock eye exam demonstration with Q & As with Salus Optometry students.

On Saturday, 28 April Salus will be participating in the Franklin Institute’s Science Festival Carnival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. We will have a booth and activities with SLP (involving marshmallows), Optometry (involving low vision simulators) and Audiology (sound level meters). This is a free event that has dynamic demonstrations, engaging experiments, geeky games, and electrifying entertainment for the entire family.  The weather should be great, so I encourage you all to go out there to support our folks.

Back by popular demand, the Sports Vision Club SVC be hosting a Dodgeball Tournament with proceeds going to SOSH! The entry fee is $5.00 per player with snacks and Gatorade provided! There will be prizes for the winning team!  There are only 8 team spots available, so email sportsvision@salus.edu to reserve your spot! At least 6 players are needed, with at least 3 female players per team.

Tonight, the annual Salus Soirée will be held from 8 PM-12 AM at the Arts Ballroom in Center City.  It’s a great opportunity to dance the night away under the stars at the Arts Ballroom in Philadelphia! 

This morning we were treated to an extremely informative optometric Grand Rounds lecture from Dr. Doan Kwak, one of our newest faculty members, on the pre and post-operative management of refractive surgery. I think our practice will really benefit from Dr. Kwak’s recent experience working at a major refractive surgery center. 

Finally, we’re making progress on the Lombardi Classroom which will be dedicated on May 23. 

Have a great weekend. Be safe, be courteous to one another and have some fun!

Mike

Busy Spring: Week of April 20th

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board members and Friends:

Dr. Scharre and I just returned from a trip to Nashville, Tenn., where we honored the Osborne College of Audiology’s (OCA) newest Alumna of the Year, Dr. Angela Morris, AuD ’03, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Audiology (AAA). We were joined by Mr. Dennis Washington, our vice president for institutional advancement, and 72 alumni, students and faculty, which made it a wonderful event. Dr. Morris’ accomplishments are numerous and you can read a bit more about them on our website. Angela truly embodies the drive, compassion, excellence and professionalism that we have grown to expect from our Salus graduates.   

Salus OCA was also very well represented at AAA with presentations by Drs. Radhika Aravamudhan, PhD; Rebecca Blaha, AuD; Bre Myers, AuD; and Jonette Owen,AuD. Dr. Owen's poster received the Blue-Ribbon Excellence Award. We even had our first student poster presentation, by Monica Skarzynski ‘19AUD and Jamie Lantz ‘19AUD, selected for presentation at the Academy Research Conference. Congratulations to everyone who made this such as successful and memorable meeting! 

Last Friday we hosted the annual PCO Quiz Bowl on campus. As usual, the event was exciting, educational and fun. This year’s winner was Annie Govan ‘20PCO. Annie will go on to represent Salus/PCO at Optometry’s Meeting next year in St. Louis, Mo. Last year’s PCO Quiz Bowl winner, Celeste Gomez ‘19PCO, will compete against contestants from 23 other schools at the Essilor Optometry Student Bowl on Thursday, June 21, during Optometry’s Meeting at the American Optometric Association Congress in Denver, Colo. Here’s a link for more information.

On Saturday, April 14, students from our Physician Assistant program participated in the PA Olympics, held at Bamboo Gardens in Vincetown, N.J. Students competed against seven other schools in games of tug-of-war, dodgeball, a speculum egg race, and trivia – all in the name of charity.The game day events mark the end of fundraising for this year’s charity and is a day of fun and celebration for all of the PA students involved. This year, the students raised money for the Miracle League - North Hampton, a baseball league for children with mental and physical handicaps, in Churchville, Pa. A record 600 students participated in the games on Saturday. A check was given to the Miracle League - North Hampton for the total amount raised of $24,500 which will go toward a playground for special needs children next to their specialized baseball field. Well done!

We just posted a wonderful story on our website about how our staff at the Pennsylvania Ear Institute has had a life-changing influence on an 11-year old young lady. Read more. 

A historical note – The Eye Institute (TEI) celebrates its 40th anniversary this month. Opened in 1978 (my class was the first class to practice there),TEI has been a model for every other optometry program in the country to emulate. Read more about TEI’s history.

Next week is going to be a busy week around here, starting on Sunday. On Sunday, April 22, we will be hosting the annual Joseph Toland Excellence in Education optometric CE event on campus. The event will feature Drs. Rigoberto Arteaga, Alissa Coyne, OD, FAAO; Pinakin Davey, Bisant Libib, OD,FAAO; Tracy Offerdahl, BSc,PharmD; and our residents who will be presenting Grand Rounds cases. The CE will cover the ocular manifestation of ocular disease, lasers, glaucoma, and pharmacology cases. This is always a great event to catch up on the latest in treatment options and technology.

On Monday, April 23, I will speak at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel (across the street from the EP campus) at 11:30 a.m. about my experiences as the senior military medical representative while serving at the United States Pacific Command Surgeon during Operation Tomodachi, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. You are all invited to attend.

On April 24, our Blindness and Low Vision Studies will be hosting an Alumni and Friends reception at the annual meeting of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation at The Central Best Western Atrium in Harrisburg, PA at 5:30 p.m. All of our alumni and friends are invited to attend.

On Wednesday, April 25, in support of our Veterans Readiness Initiative, Salus students and faculty will participate in a multi-disciplinary health screening at the annual Veteran’s Expo held at College Hall, Montgomery County Community College in Bluebell, Pa., from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 

On Thursday, April 26, I’m invited to discuss my views on leadership to the officers of U.S. Naval Hospital, Naples, Italy via WebEx. The discussion is scheduled for 9 a.m. and I will be doing this from the Salus board room (W400). Please come if you’re interested. 

Also on Thursday, the admissions office will host students from the Hardy Williams Mastery Charter High School STEM program on our Elkins Park campus for most of the morning. So, when you see these students walking around campus be sure to say hi.

On that note, I’ll conclude, wishing everyone a safe and fun weekend! 

Mike

A Sunny Friday the 13th: Week of April 13th

Happy Friday the 13th and greetings from a sunny and warmer Elkins Park! I think Spring has finally come – at least for part of this weekend.

On Wednesday, Salus hosted the 10th annual intercollegiate Occupational Therapy night organized by occupational therapy (OT) student representatives from each of the local Philadelphia OT and Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA) programs.  The event's speaker, Stephen Kern, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, and OT faculty member at Thomas Jefferson University, spoke about his work embedding OT services within the Philadelphia non-profit organization Nationalities Service Center (NSC), a refugee and community integration center meeting the needs of newly arriving refugees, victims of human trafficking and unaccompanied children.  There were over 125 OT/COTA students at this very successful event.

As most of you know, I like to walk around the campus every day to see what’s going on. I am often struck with all the creativity and energy that is generated by our students and faculty, no matter where I am.  I was thrilled to see a combined SLP and OT class discussing education and language, which is exactly what our interprofessional educational initiatives are designed to facilitate.  I always feel a sense of pride and humility when I walk through the Learning Resource Center, Virtual Reality and Clinical Procedures labs knowing that we helped to bring these venues to campus and to see our students and faculty interacting at a level that surpasses most other institutions.  The creativity and energy generated by our faculty and students is amazing and greatly appreciated!  

One of my favorite stops is generally new construction projects we’re doing.  Seeing the progress from day to day is fun.  Our new Lombardi classroom is progressing nicely with a dedication ceremony planned for graduation week.  The new state-of-the-art classroom will enable us to bring large numbers together without having to set up the gymnasium at the Hafter Center, as well as provide a much more conducive learning environment.  I can’t wait to see it all done!


If you haven’t been over to the Hafter Center lately, I strongly encourage you to go and check out the latest ArtSisters exhibition, in the D’Arrigo Family Gallery, that focuses on colors.  There are some really beautiful and colorful works on display that will just cheer you up the moment you see them.  They’re all for sale in the event you wanted to take one home. The exhibit runs through August 26th.

I want to wish all of our Thai students and alumni สวัสดีปีใหม่ (sà-wàt-dee bpee mài) or Happy New Year.  I had the opportunity to celebrate the Thai New Year with our international students last evening and it was just a wonderful event.  Thanks to Dr. Vitek, Natalie Standig, and all of our international students for arranging this.

Tonight is the annual AOSA Quiz Bowl in the Hafter Center.  This is a wonderful event that selects who will be representing PCO in Essilor's Quiz Bowl which is held at Optometry’s Meeting in June, this year in Denver, Co. If you have some time, I encourage you to attend – it starts at 5:30 p.m. – it’s always a great deal of fun!

It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful weekend, so try to get out and enjoy the sunshine and warm weather on Saturday before the rain and cooler weather returns. 

Be safe, be respectful of each other and have fun.

Mike

Great Work at Salus Continues: Week of April 6th

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

According to the calendar spring started last month, so why are we forecasted to get an inch or more of snow this weekend??!! April is supposed to be full of perfect days to go out and enjoy the great outdoors! I guess we can all hope for a warm-up soon. 

Even with unseasonable weather swirling about around us, the great work our students, faculty and staff are all doing continues at Salus.

Please join me in congratulating our newest PhD’s:

• Robert Andersson whose topic was: Justifying the Need for Mandated Comprehensive Eye Care in Nursing Homes 
• Richard Hom whose topic was: Food Insecurity and Vision Impairment among Adults in the United States
• Mashael Namaeh whose topic was: A Normative Study of Objective Measures of Disparity Vergence in Children 9 to 17 years old 
• Lauren Sponseller whose topic was: Exploring Occupational Therapy's Role with Mothers Who Breastfeed

All four successfully defended their dissertations recently. We’re so proud of all of these fine professionals!


Yesterday, a team of students and faculty were at the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) participating in our Veteran’s Readiness Initiative. The event, which included optometry, audiology, speech-language pathology and for the first time, PA students and faculty provided multisensory screenings to veterans and, at the request of CCP, non-veterans with the goal of identifying and removing any potential barriers to reintegration and educational success. The program is designed to identify symptoms that could be associated with post-concussive injuries and were exposed to conditions that might have caused either mild or moderate Traumatic Brain Injury. 

Congratulations to Mr. Bob Serianni - we've just learned that Bob has been nominated as the next president of the Pennsylvania Speech-Language-Hearing Association!  He will serve a three-year term: President Elect in 2019, President in 2020, and Past President in 2021. So, Salus will be at the forefront of SLP in the Commonwealth in the coming years!!!  

Speaking of SLP, last night, the Speech-Language Pathology class of 2018 presented their capstone presentations to the University community. All of our SLP student presenters as well as the entire SLP faculty, most who served as mentors to each student group as they completed their projects, need to be commended for the quality, creativity and academic rigor that went into each endeavor. All the presentations were exceptional. Congratulations to all of you!

On Saturday, optometry, audiology and SLP students and faculty will be participating in the Montgomery County Wellness Expo from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. at Montgomery County Community College MCCC. Students and staff will be providing vision, hearing and speech screenings for local residents and MCCC students, faculty and staff. This is a great opportunity to assist the local community as well as to generate necessary referrals to our Salus clinical facilities.

On Tuesday, 10 April, we will be celebrating National Library Week in our Learning Resource Center. There will be a reception at 12 p.m. with light refreshments - you are all invited to attend!

I wanted to conclude this week’s update with a discussion that I believe we all need to be paying close attention to. Wednesday evening Brian Zuckerman, John Gaal and I had the opportunity to attend a panel discussion that included Dr. David Nash, founding dean of the School of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University and Melissa Weiler Gerber, the president and CEO of Access Matters (www.accessmatters.org), a Philadelphia nonprofit formerly called the Family Planning Council that helps to ensure access to sexual and reproductive health assets. Dr. Nash is a physician who also holds an MBA, is a nationally recognized expert on health economics and practice and holds an honorary degree from Salus, in addition to all his other accomplishments. Ms. Gerber is a nationally recognized advocate for Women’s health and was formally head of Women’s Way.  

The discussion ranged from the future of the Affordable Care Act to equitable access to care for minorities and the poor in our city. Dr. Nash noted that the U.S. spends more money than any other country for healthcare yet our outcomes don’t even rise to the top ten as compared to other industrialized nations. He drilled down further and when comparing fetal mortality rates in Ghana to Philadelphia, our city looked more like a third-world country than Ghana. It’s a sad commentary on how Philadelphia’s unprivileged, which represents almost one-fourth of the city’s population have access to prenatal care but more importantly, are subject to the social determinant of health. Dr. Nash pointed out that only 15% of health outcomes are related to direct access to a health system. That means 85% of one’s health is directly related to other things such as safe housing and local food markets, access to educational, economic, and job opportunities, access to healthcare services, quality education and job training, availability of community-based resources in support of community living and opportunities for recreational and leisure-time activities and transportation options, to name a few. These are the social determinants of health.

Ms. Gerber added that there appears to be a “war on the poor” where programs that have historically educated and cared for women, such as Planned Parenthood and others are at risk due to budget cuts and political pressures to discontinue them. She stressed how important it was for underprivileged women to have access to these types of support services to assure people receive adequate healthcare and health guidance. Ms. Gerber also highlighted the positive impact Medicaid has had on this population in enabling people to obtain necessary sexual and reproductive healthcare services.  

Finally, Dr. Nash pointed out that only 3% of Americans currently practice what has been defined as a “healthy lifestyle” which includes daily exercise, no smoking, eating fruits and vegetables, using a seatbelt when driving and having a normal body mass index. That’s a pretty sad commentary on the state of health in America and a major, contributing factor in why our healthcare costs are so high.  

You may be asking yourself why I’ve spent so much time on this. I don’t believe there is any topic more vital to raising the awareness and improving the overall health of our community and the nation than these issues. It’s also embedded in our Salus mission to be part of the solution. At Salus, we do a great job of teaching how to and ultimately provide high quality care for all of our patients and clients. It is also incumbent upon us to be very cognizant of all those other things – those social determinants - that directly affect most of our patient and clients. We need to be asking them about their diets – are they getting three meals a day, do they have adequate housing, do they have access to other healthcare providers, etc.? If we find they are not, we can potentially have a great impact on their lives by connecting them with appropriate social and other services that can hopefully assist.  

I apologize for the length of this update but felt it was important to share some commentary of my insightful evening. I hope you all take some time to reflect on those, as well as on how lucky we all are to be in a position to help move this in the right direction.  

Have a great weekend, take some time to spend with friends and family and stay safe!

Mike

A Special Salus Weekly Update: Week of March 30th

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

This weekend, as our Jewish colleagues begin the observance of Passover, and as our Christian colleagues celebrate Easter it’s important that we take a moment with our family and friends to be thankful for all the gifts we have both in being able to care for others as well as having others care for us.

These holidays remind us that our life here on Earth and our work at Salus provide a means of being able to care for and give onto others. They are also a reminder of how we should treat each other with kindness and respect.

In this spirit of thankfulness and caring, Tanis and I wish you and your families a peaceful and blessed Easter and Passover. Have a great weekend.

Mike

Springtime Snow: Week of March 23rd

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

Well, we survived Nor’easter number four with only one and a half days lost. The good news is that we never lost power and the snow is already starting to melt. What a way to bring in Spring!

Even with only a four-day week, it’s been busy around here. As a result of the storm the National Board of Examiners in Optometry (NBEO) Part I Exam was delayed for a day. While I’m sure that doesn’t sound like much, for the students who were ready to take the exam, it can be distracting when it gets delayed. I'm confident the delay didn't affect our students, since they were so well prepared AND so head and shoulders above everyone else!

I had the opportunity to spend the first part of the week attending the 18th Annual Population Health Colloquium sponsored by Thomas Jefferson School of Population Health. The event was kicked off by Dr. David Schulkin, Secretary of the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA). He discussed some of the recent challenges the VA has had concerning access to care in certain regions as well as some of their successes which includes a significant reduction in Hepatitis C cases among veterans, noting more than 60% of veterans known to have Hepatitis C have been cured. He also discussed veteran suicide rates which was rather sobering. While suicide rates for male veterans have decreased over the past few years, suicide rates for female veterans have increased. After adjusting for differences in age, risk for suicide was 2.5 times higher among female veterans when compared to U.S. non-veteran adult women. Dr. Schulkin said that effectively addressing this has become his number one priority, noting that if a veteran gains access to VA mental health assets the incidence of suicide declines dramatically. Something for us all to be aware of, especially if we are caring for veterans in any of our clinics or have friends or family who have served.

Another interesting discussion I attended addressed data and data transparency between electronic medical records (EMRs) and users. Tommy Thompson and Michael Leavitt, both former Secretaries of Health and Human Services and state governors discussed the importance of being able to share big data between health systems and providers. They contended that data transparency will help to drive quality up and fraudulent claims down. Noting that most EMR firms tend to be extremely protective of their data for proprietary reasons. Both of these leaders are pushing hard to facilitate a more seamless exchange of information that will benefit patients and drive down costs. This is also something we need to be watching closely because any rules affecting the collection and portability of patient data can affect how we practice and communicate with our colleagues.

Last Friday, Salus faculty participated in the rescheduled Development Day which included a very insightful lecture and discussion by Salome Heyward, Esq. on the Role of Faculty in the Accommodation Process. Both the lecture and discussion were extremely thought provoking and provided some great guidance and suggestions in how best to handle student accommodations in both the academic and clinical settings. The didactic portion of the program was followed by a reception where scholarly accomplishments of several faculty members were acknowledged. As I said during the program, we are so blessed to have such a talented and motivated faculty, which was quite evident by the pages of scholarly work that this group produced in the period of a year! Well done! 

This Sunday we will be hosting our annual optometric continuing education event, Dynamic Duos with lectures presented by optometrists sharing the podium with various healthcare professionals. More info can be found at salus.edu/events.

Dining with Diabetes, a series designed to help diabetics better manage their nutritional needs will begin again next week at The Eye Institute. This follows classes that were provided in November and December last year. This is a great way to get the community involved in The Eye Institute as well as the CityLife Clinic located on the second floor of the building.

This morning several of us attended Grand Rounds at The Eye Institute where Dr. Erin Kenny presented a lecture on The Past, Present and Future of Retinal Implants. It was fascinating to see the progress that has been made in helping patients who have been blind to see shapes and contrast using small devices implanted in their retinas. While there is still much more progress that needs to occur, these devices, with the aid of orientation and mobility and vision training, can be real life changers for those patients who are able to adapt to the technology. Much more to come on this front over the next few years, I’m sure!

In our College of Education and Rehabilitation, Bob Serianni, Patricia Mayro and other individuals from the Speech-Language Department will be representing Salus this weekend in Pittsburgh at the Pennsylvania Speech-Language Hearing Association Convention. Always great to have our staff out and about!

Next week Mr. John Gaal and I will be headed to Chicago for the annual Congress of the American College of Healthcare Executives. I’m hoping to learn more about some of the topics that were discussed at the Population Health Colloquium as it pertains to data exchange as well as any changes that might be coming down the pike in Medicare and Medicaid. With so many things potentially changing in healthcare it’s always educational for me to attend these meetings where we will hear the different views directly from some of the movers and shakers in healthcare on topics that directly affect how we practice the professions we train here at Salus.

It looks like it’s going to be a nice weekend. No Nor’easters on the horizon! Get out and enjoy the snow while it lasts and take some time to spend with your family and friends. Be safe and have fun!

Busy Friday on Campus: Week of March 16th

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

Good morning from a sunny Elkins Park! No snow, no rain but a little wind and LOTS of potholes!  It’s been another busy week here at Salus so let me tell you some of the things that are going on:

Dr. Erin Kenny and TEI social worker, Jinnie Scott, were interviewed yesterday on WDAS about their work in Low Vision at our Feinbloom Center. It’s always great to be able to get the word out to the public about all the great things that we can offer Low Vision patients at pretty much any stage of their disease. Thanks to Dr. Kenny and Ms. Scott for waving the Salus flag!

Our annual alumni awards have been announced and I wanted to share that information with everyone. They are as follows:

• Albert Fitch Memorial Alumnus of the Year: David R. McPhillips, OD ’85
• Audiology Alumna of the Year: Angela M. Morris, AuD ’03
• Blindness and Low Vision Studies Alumna of the Year: Sister Lisa Ann Lettiere, IHM, MEd ’00, TVI, COMS
• Physician Assistant Alumna of the Year: Jennifer M. Heibel, MMS '15
• Distinguished Service Award: Lorraine Lombardi, PhD
• Special Recognition Award: Susan C. Oleszewski, OD ’76, MA, FAAO

Congratulations to all those who have been recognized by their peers.

Speaking of awards, Dr. Tom Lewis, Salus President Emeritus, was honored by the Review of Optometry as he received the 2018 Career Achievement Award while attending the Southeastern Educational Congress of Optometry (SECO) in Atlanta, Ga. a couple of weeks ago. Congratulations Tom on this a well-deserved honor!

A reminder that today the Research Department will be hosting Research Symposium 11, featuring Andrea Tyszka, MS, OTR/L, SIPT and Fern Silverman, EdD, OTR/L. The title of today’s presentation is Community-based action research: Using evidence to support wellbeing for families with children who have sensory processing needs. The symposium is held from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. in the board room. Everyone is 
welcome to attend. 

The Speech-Language Institute have been regularly conducting brain injury screenings at TEI and “Raise Your Voice”, a newly created support group, will provide members of the transgender community the opportunity to practice techniques related to voice and other gender-specific communication skills on Saturday, March 17 from 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. at the Speech-Language Institute. 

For the next couple of weeks, seven students from Finland, Sweden and Germany will be on campus to participate in a special posterior segment class. Please join me in welcoming these professionals to campus.

Today we will be holding a University Development Day in S300 from 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m., followed by a light reception in the Café. This was previously scheduled a couple of weeks ago but had to be rescheduled due to the snow storm. The topic for the day will be the ADA & the Accommodation Process at Salus, presented by Salome Heyward, Esq. who is an expert in the Americans with Disabilities Act, more commonly known as the ADA.  

Finally, many of us will be headed up to New York tomorrow to participate in Vision Expo East. We will be hosting an Alumni and Friends reception at the event which will be held from 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. in the Javits Center, Room 1E13. If you’re at the meeting, please stop by and join us for some updates and refreshments. 

I hope everyone has a nice weekend and gets a chance to get outside and enjoy what looks like will be some nice weather.