Greetings from San Antonio: Week of November 9, 2018

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

Greetings from San Antonio where I’m attending the annual meeting of the American Academy of Optometry, along with many of our PCO faculty and students.  It’s been a great meeting with several of our faculty and students attaining professional recognition in the form of academy diplomate status and practice excellence recognition.  Congratulations to Dr. Bisant Labib, Co-Chief of Suite 3, who earned her Diplomate in Comprehensive Eye Care and to Susan Barnes and Kathrine Boas, both from the PCO class of 2019, for receiving a VSP Practice Excellence Award.  We’re extremely proud of all of you!  Also, several of our faculty and students are presenting lectures and posters throughout the meeting. PCO is making a huge splash in San Antonio!!!

Just a reminder that Dr. Trego and PCO will be hosting an Alumni and Friends reception in the Grand Hyatt, Texas Ballroom F, 4th Floor later today at 6:30 p.m.  We hope everyone who’s in San Antonio for the Academy meeting can join us!

Congratulations to Radhika Aravamudhan who has just been named the Dean of the Osborne College of Audiology!

Rachel Ditoro, MSPAS, PA-C, associate professor, College of Health Sciences, presented three talks to Physician Assistant Program educators at the annual Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) Forum in Anaheim, CA: “Competency-based Medical Education (CBME): Beginning with the End in Mind” parts one and two, which provided an overview of CBME, its core components, and its utilization in PA education.  Ditoro also co-presented a third talk, “Early Remediation Using a Competency-based Education Model” with Donna Agnew, MSPAS,PA-C,DFAAPA, interim dean, College of Health Sciences, addressing targeted remediation for identified deficits.  It’s great to see our folks lecturing on the national stage.

Congratulations to our Looking Out For Kids charity fundraiser team for orchestrating what has been our best event to date last Saturday night.  We had over 300 people in attendance including Senator Vincent Hughes and our Lighthouse Award recipient, Donna Frisby-Greenwood.

Special thanks to Kate Braemer and the team in Institutional Advancement and Alumni Relations for putting all this together. Special thanks to Rosemary Connors from NBC10 who served as our co-host and to all of our sponsors, including National Vision, Lindy Property Management Co., Conicelli Toyota, Fox Rothschild, E.B. Reilly, MyEyeDr, Office Depot, T3 Construction, U.S. Vision and many others.  Also, special thanks to our Board of Trustee members for your attendance as well to all those who contributed time, wine, money and artwork to the silent auction.  It looked like everyone had a great time! For more info, check out our website.

The Keneseth Israel Reform Congregation is holding a concert featuring the Main Line Symphony Orchestra with Maestro Don Liuzzi, 68-member musicians, a guest narrator, and soloists on Sunday at 7:15 p.m. Salus students, faculty and staff have been invited to attend this great event.  Admission is $10 and tickets will be available at the door.

It looks like it’s going to be a nice cool weekend in Philadelphia! Get out the hot chocolate and settle in with your books if you’re studying, or try to get outside and enjoy what’s left of the fall leaves.  There will be snow on the ground before we know it!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Mike