Fall Has Arrived: Week of September 29th

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

It’s a beautiful fall day in Philadelphia - finally!  It’s a great way to end what has been a busy and productive week at the University.  

On Monday, we hosted our Board of Trustees on campus for their quarterly meeting. I had the opportunity to provide an update on many of the initiatives we all have been involved in both over the course of the last few months as well as over the past few years. During the course of the meeting, the Board acknowledged the wonderful work our student member of the Board of Trustees (SMOTBOT), Pelashia Moore Rhodes ‘18OD,  has done representing our student body throughout her two year term. With all of the associated committee meetings it was a very busy, yet productive day.  We’re extremely lucky to have a board endowed with great leadership, strategic vision and immense professional talent.  

This week, the Osborne College of Audiology (OCA) was extremely well represented by students, faculty and college Advisory Board members at the 2017 Academy of Doctors of Audiology conference in Connecticut. OCA class of 2018 students Jessica Strzepek, Katrina Smith, Roksolana Voshchilo and Amanda McVey competed in the Business Plan competition with Jessica and Katrina winning 2nd place and Roksolana and Amanda winning 3rd. Congratulations!

I would also like to acknowledge and congratulate the staff of our Blindness and Low Vision Studies (BLVS) program on receiving a $1.25 million, five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSEP) on the topic of Inter-professional Education (IPE).  This represents the combined work of our BLVS, Occupational Therapy and Speech- Language Pathology departments and provides a unique opportunity for Salus as a whole. The University’s College of Education and Rehabilitation demonstrates how IPE can effectively prepare our students to work within multi-disciplinary, inter-professional environments that will undoubtedly affect their future health professions.

I know most of you have been following the major natural disaster in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria. We’ve reached out to the optometry school there to see what assistance they might need but have not heard back yet. Between Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, our country has experienced widespread damage affecting the lives of millions of people. Please join me in keeping all of those affected by these storms in your thoughts and prayers. While we may not see many headlines, people in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico will be dealing with the aftermath of these disasters for years to come.  

Yesterday, PCO dean Dr. Trego and I hosted senior representatives from Johnson and Johnson (J&J), to include alumnus Dr. Kurt Moody ’83, and representatives from Wills Eye Hospital at both The Eye Institute and Elkins Park campus. The purpose of the visit was to showcase our state-of-the-art facilities and inform J&J leadership about our programs as well as to discuss ways that J&J could help facilitate collaborations between Wills Eye and Salus. We came up with several ideas that I believe will be beneficial to our students and patients as well as Wills Eye’s residents and patients. It’s pretty exciting to explore ways two premier eye care institutions can work together to the benefit of many.  More on this as we continue to work with both Wills and J&J. 

Finally, tonight is the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. To all of our Jewish students and colleagues, we wish you an easy fast. 

A reminder that our Looking Out of Kids charity fundraiser is November 11 at 6:30 at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill. Tickets are now available and can be obtained on our website at salus.edu/LOFK. 

It looks like the weekend is going to remain cool and sunny.  If you get a chance, get out and enjoy this great fall weather.  Stay safe and have some fun!

Mike

Fall Commencement & White Coat Ceremony

White Coat Ceremony, October 2014

As we get ready to march into October, Salus is preparing to celebrate two very significant events; our Fall Commencement on October 6th and our traditional White Coat Ceremony on October 12th. Both of these ceremonies mark significant milestones in the professional careers of our students.

Our Fall Commencement always includes our Physician Assistant program graduates, but this year we're also graduating students who have completed our Master of Public Health (MPH), Doctor of Audiology Online Bridge Program and Blindness and Low Vision program. Commencement marks the transition from being a professional student to becoming a healthcare professional. Thanks to the wonderful education and training they have received at Salus, these very talented individuals will now take their place in the American healthcare system, with an eye on helping to improve how healthcare is delivered in our country.  

The White Coat Ceremony marks transition from the study of pre-clinical or undergraduate studies to clinical health sciences. This ceremony also helps to instill the fact that these new caregivers will now be held to a higher standard of behavior and must earn the trust of their patients. This year we'll be presenting over 300 white coats to students in our optometry, audiology, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology degreee programs. Additionally, we're very honored to have our first cohort of Chinese students who are here to complete a specialized master's program in clinical optometry.  

While some may think these ceremonies are time consuming and unnecessary, I believe they're extremely important for both students and their families to celebrate and reflect on these significant professional milestones. Becoming a healthcare provider requires a very special commitment to lifelong learning, caring and putting others' needs before their own. We absolutely need to recognize this and celebrate all the successes these very special people achieve along the way. 

Congratulations to our graduates and white coat recipients! 

Ice Storm Hits Philadelphia

We've been without power at our Elkins Park campus since the monster ice storm hit the greater Philadelphia area Tuesday night. Many of us are still without power at home as well, including me. The local electric supplier is telling us we should expect to see electricity restored at Elkins Park by late tonight, but that is still just an estimate. We're keeping our fingers crossed that they are correct. In the meantime, I want to take the opportunity to thank our students, faculty, consultants and staff for their perseverance during this weather emergency. I especially want to thank those folks who have kept the clinical operations going smoothly at The Eye Institute and our satellites. As a health science teaching institution,Salus has a dual mission; as an educator of professionals-in-training and as a health care resource to the community. When making decisions on how to operationalize our dual mission student education and safety are always at the core of the decision making process.  We understand that many of our students, faculty and staff are still without electricity, internet, etc. and that creates a major inconvenience for those effected.  We also realize that exam and class schedules are effected as well. We will make it through all this just fine but it's going to take some additional patience and perseverance. As we move into next week, we all need to remain flexible and keep smiling. Academic and clinic schedules will be adjusted accordingly and we'll get the job done. These types of experiences tend to be bonding experiences for those who work through them collectively. Thankfully, we purchased a notification system a couple of months ago that enabled us to put out text, email and cell messages to everyone that signed up.  While not perfect, due to the nature of the emergency we've been able to keep folks informed based on the information we have. 


That's just the nature of the beast. So, thank you ALL for being understanding, professional and flexible. We all learn from these experiences so next time something like this happens our response can be even better. Hoping everyone is safe, warm and ready to hit it hard next week.

100 Days of Listening at Salus

Well, it looks like winter, or at least a sample of what winter is going to be like here in Philadelphia is upon us! Time really flies when you're having fun so it's hard for me to believe that I've been at Salus for almost 6 months now. A highlight of my time here has been getting to know the extremely talented group of students, faculty and staff - AND analyzing the results from my 100 days of listening. On Thursday and Friday of last week the Salus President's Council and I went off campus and conducted an extremely fruitful and rewarding facilitated off-site designed to set the stage for charting the course for our university over the next 10+ years. Informing our discussion were the results of the 100 days of listening, current and future healthcare delivery trends, the fiscal environment - both current and what we believe the future holds - as well as the University's current strategic plan.  


We began our two-day excursion into the future by conducting a very insightful, candid and successful team building discussion that included each of us taking the Predictive Index, a scientifically-based assessment that provides leaders and individuals with accurate, actionable data quantifying the unique motivating needs and behavioral drivers that keep people going. The good news is that we have an extraordinarily balanced team, which helps to explain why everyone works so well together and why we have such a very high-performing organization. We then went about the task of reviewing the results of the 100 days of listening and began to set the priorities and goals that will inform the next iteration of our strategic planning cycle. For me, one of the most powerful parts of our off-site was listening the our President's Council member's individual vision for our future.  It's exciting that we are all aligned in the fact that we believe Salus is poised to effectively engage in the nation's debate and discussion on how healthcare will be delivered well into this century and beyond. We are also lockstep in our thinking about how our priorities need to remain on our students, the quality of education we provide as well as faculty and staff development. Central to our thinking was our continued emphasis on community outreach and development of programs that are consistent with setting a high benchmark for inter-professional education and an integrated delivery model of healthcare. 

We are unanimous that our destiny is one of advocacy, innovation and pushing the envelope of what's within the realm of the possible, given the breadth of knowledge, experience and energy our students and faculty bring to the table of American healthcare. I'll provide more detail as the weeks progress but I wanted you to know the high level of energy and alignment that emerged from our off-site. We're all excited about sharing this with all of the University community and working with you towards development of tangible goals and metrics. Have a great week and a safe and restful Thanksgiving!