Building Resilience: Week of October 1st, 2021

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

Greetings on a rather crisp Friday morning! It’s been another busy week, both on and off campus, for many of us. I just returned from two days in Harrisburg and one day in Washington, DC, where I had the honor of presenting Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam with an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree for her extraordinary work in helping to keep all Pennsylvanians safe during the pandemic, followed by a meeting with Senator Jake Corman where I had the opportunity to discuss the importance of all of our professions practicing to the highest limits of their training. The last leg of my trip in DC I participated in a meeting addressing Veteran’s health issues, which was extremely interesting. In addition to my travels, below are some important things I’d like you all to be aware of:

GIVING WEEK: Join us for our third annual Salus Giving Week, Oct. 4-8, 2021, by supporting funding for student scholarships, capital improvements, and community outreach. With your donation of any size, we can make sure that we continue providing high quality education to all of our students and serve our neediest communities. In addition, for our employees, your gift can be a one-time donation or you can choose to contribute via payroll deduction and spread it out over time. The employee campaign dovetails with Salus Giving Week. If you submit a donation form by Thursday, Oct, 7, you will be entered for a chance to win one of three prizes: Apple TV; Facebook Portal; or Frameo Digital Photo Frame. For more information, click here.

FREE DEPRESSION SCREENINGS: CPPD is offering free, brief depression screenings on Thursday, October 7 (National Depression Screening Day) from 10-3 in W-300C with Dr. Tami April-Davis.

CLOSING IN ON COMMENCEMENT: A reminder that fall commencement is right around the corner — at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12 — and we’ll be back at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts for the ceremony. Our guest speaker and honorary degree recipient will be Alison Beam, Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of Health. Check our website for details.

O&P DIRECTOR ON BOARD: J. Chad Duncan, director of our new Orthotics and Prosthetics (O&P) program, has arrived on campus and is hard at work on the details of building the program from the ground up. He comes to us from Northwestern University in Chicago where he was the director of the Prosthetics and Orthotics (P&O) program at the university. The Northwestern P&O program is the oldest and one of the most distinguished programs in the country. Read more about Dr. Duncan here.

WELL-DESERVED HONORS: It was a pleasure to see everyone and honor Presidential Medal and Alumni Association award winners from the past two years earlier this week at Morris Arboretum. Aside from commencement, this is my favorite ceremony, and we were able to do it face-to-face this year. Our staff is so special, they work hard on behalf of the students and patients and they all deserve the recognition that they’ve gotten. We also honored longtime Board of Trustees chair Jo Surpin. Look for stories about the ceremony and Jo on our website next week.

MEDAL WINNER FEATURE: Speaking of which, we’ll be featuring all the 2021 Presidential Medal winners in separate stories on our website over the next few weeks. Leading off is Giri Sundar, MPHil, PhD, CCC-A, FAAA, who drew the biggest laughs of the evening when she described being told that she was a medal winner. Read more about Dr. Sundar here.

RESIDENT CLASS OF 2022: Get to know one of our newest residents, Wayne Tan, OD ‘21, ‘22Resident, who was born in the city of Guangdong, Kaiping China, and immigrated to Baltimore, Maryland, when he was 10 years old. Coming to America at that age was challenging for Dr. Tan as he had to assimilate to a whole new culture. Find out more about his journey to PCO/Salus here.

SLP PODCAST, PART TWO: Join Robert Serianni, MS, CCC-SLP, FNAP, the chair and program director of the department of Speech-Language Pathology at Salus University, in part two of a podcast Q&A as he speaks with an externship supervisor and a student, now an alum, that she's worked with. Read more or listen here.

GRAND ROUNDS: The next Grand Rounds at The Eye Institute (TEI) will be from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 8. The topic will be "Myopia Control Update" with Dr. Nicholas Gidosh. Click here for more information.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I’d like to spend just a few minutes talking about resilience. Resilience is the ability to effectively cope with adversity and bounce back from challenges we’re presented with. We are now 18+ months into a global pandemic, with the end many months away, many of you have just begun your professional training and the vast majority of you reading this have been working through multiple scenarios to assure we can both teach and learn under very stressful conditions. While you all have been rock stars as we’ve navigated through all this, there has been a toll. Hence, the importance of building and maintaining our resilience to remain healthy, both physically and mentally. I have a few suggestions for you that I’ve learned through experience, articles written about it and talking to experts who have found ways of dealing with long-term stress.

Many experts suggest practicing mindfulness. There is evidence that suggests that practicing mindfulness mediation can increase your resilience by training your mind not to continuously reflect on those things causing stress but rather on the good things that surround you such as concentrating on positive relationships, thinking about plans for the future and finding ways to deal with difficult challenges in your life.

Another way to build resilience is to establish a core group of friends you can feel comfortable discussing what’s on your mind in a “safe space”. Having a group like that has really helped me as I’ve maneuvered through the pandemic. Along with this, try to develop a routine that allows you to eat healthy foods, get enough sleep and exercise regularly. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll find a group supports each other to develop these resilience building habits. Finally, try to remain optimistic. It’s amazing how a positive attitude can change the way you react to things. Sometimes, it’s not easy, but it’s well worth the effort!

As you prepare for the weekend, try to reflect on some of the things you can do to build and maintain your resilience. It’s going to be beautiful outside, so I encourage you to take advantage of this great weather. As you’re doing this, please remember to wear your face mask when around others, vaccinated or not and try to socially distance when you can. Be safe, be resilient and remain SALUS STRONG!

Mike