April Showers: Week of April 21st

Students, Faculty, Residents, Alumni, Staff, Board of Trustees and Friends,

Greetings from a rainy Philadelphia - April showers are here to help with our spring flowers, many of which are already in bloom!  

I’d like to thank Dr. Carlo Pelino for taking the time to present a lecture entitled, "Diabetic Changes and the Eye: Age Related Macular Degeneration” at the Ambler YMCA yesterday afternoon. We have been participating in the YMCA’s health education series over the past few months and all of our lectures have been extremely well-received. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time and effort to make these important outreach opportunities successful.

Congratulations to our inaugural SLP class on a very successful and impressive Capstone poster event last Thursday. The scope, depth and quality of each of the posters were impressive, to say the least. I would like to thank our faculty and staff for mentoring our fantastic students. Everyone enjoyed seeing all of the great work our students spent so much time and effort developing. Thank you for your efforts – it makes me SALUS PROUD!

Yesterday the University’s Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) hosted Dr. Steve Loomis, past president of the American Optometric Association for a visit.  I had the opportunity to take Dr. Loomis around campus to see our new Learning Resource Center and Clinical Procedures Lab updates. During his visit, he met with both students and faculty in addition to touring The Eye Institute (TEI), which included the new primary care clinical facility on the upper level. In talking with Dr. Loomis, he agreed PCO is continuing to lead the way in teaching and innovation through our new virtual reality lab and state of the art clinical procedures lab.  Additionally, Dr. Loomis shares our view that optometrists need to be taking on a greater role in the delivery of primary medical care to include the management of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. Having the new primary care clinic at TEI, combined with updates to the program’s curriculum, will pave the road for all of that to happen over time. This doesn’t mean we will lose sight of teaching more “traditional” topics such as contact lenses, lasers, binocular vision, etc. We just have to vigorously expand our portfolio to stay ahead of the changes occurring in our national healthcare arena. Salus is well positioned to take this on! We greatly appreciate Dr. Loomis’ time and effort!

This wouldn’t be complete without an update on the University’s construction projects. First and foremost, I invite everyone to check out the new mural at the entrance to the Learning Resource Center. The mural takes you through time from PCO’s original location on Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia to today’s vibrant University campus here in Elkins Park.

Furniture and equipment for the Clinical Procedures Lab have arrived - it’s fun to watch the progress! At TEI, work is nearly completion on the second floor with our primary care partners hoping to see patients in mid-May. Work on the parking lot will also begin shortly. It’s very rewarding to see all of the moving parts come together!  

Finally, I’m on the road again this coming week. I will be traveling with Dr. Vitek to an optometry meeting in Thailand where both of us will be lecturing and conducting meetings to discuss greater collaborations between Salus and Rangsit University, located right outside Bangkok. From there we’ll head to Singapore to conduct a graduation ceremony for our Singapore students who have completed their Master of Science Degree in Clinical Optometry. We will also hold an alumni reception concurrently to honor Singapore optometrists who have previously completed our program.  

Have a great weekend. Be safe and have fun!

Mike