ASCO News

ROCKVILLE, MD, August 29, 2017, 12:10 pm ET – The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) is closely monitoring the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, particularly how it is affecting the staff and students at our institution, the University of Houston, College of Optometry (HCO).

We are hearing from Dr. Earl Smith III, Dean of HCO, that the College, to date, has not sustained any damage and all students and staff are safe.

ASCO’s Board of Directors and staff sends its best wishes and prayers to everyone in the Houston area. ASCO will continue communications with Dr. Smith and send updates if necessary.

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A Short Conversation with Dr. David Damari, ASCO President

Each July, ASCO swears in a new President to serve for the year. This year’s President, Dr. David Damari, sat down with ASCO’s Intern, Amanda Howarth, and Director of Communications, Kimberly O’Sullivan to talk about the next twelve months.

Dr. David A. Damari is the Dean at Ferris State University Michigan College of Optometry. Prior to his appointment as Dean, he was a professor at Southern College of Optometry (SCO) and the Chair of the Department of Assessment, responsible for institutional review, measures of academic outcomes, and regional and professional accreditation. He is a Fellow and past president of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development and a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry.

ASCO: Dr. Damari, congratulations on being named ASCO President for fiscal year 2017-2018. What are you excited for most? Do you think you will face any challenges in the coming year?

Dr. Damari: I’m excited and honored to be ASCO’s president. I’ve been involved with ASCO since I was an optometry student at SUNY. I’ve always been aware of ASCO’s role in the profession and it’s a remarkable privilege for me to lead this great organization where I will get to work with the great Presidents and Deans at all the schools and colleges of optometry.

It’s a difficult time in all healthcare professional education right now. There are fewer students graduating from high school, which means fewer graduating from college, and thus less students applying to healthcare professional schools overall. We have the challenge of getting the best and the brightest college students to recognize what a terrific profession optometry is – a profession that helps people improve their quality of life. In my opinion, there is no other healthcare profession that does more to improve people’s lives than optometry.

Optometry is a fun and exciting field that truly impacts lives. I believe we face the challenge of doing a better job to communicate this to potential students around the country. Some of the publications that ASCO has produced really do that well. The “True Stories” brochure eloquently captures how much our profession can do for patients. Those communications go a long way about informing people about our profession. We can and must keep doing more to attract the best and the brightest.

ASCO: What will be some of your top priorities this year?

DD: Dr. Zadnik got us started on the strategic planning process so my top priority is to finalize our Comprehensive Strategic Plan and to start its implementation. Specifically, the number one priority is to build our applicant pool. I want to increase our effectiveness in various operations, to give our staff better resources, and to better communicate with our volunteers. We need to continue to take advantage of our great, new Executive Director, Dawn Mancuso. We’re excited for the direction ASCO is going in.

ASCO: What are your ideas to help the ASCO staff further the Strategic Plan?

DD: I hope to visit the ASCO office when we’re in D.C. this year and meet with the staff. I had been there when I became Dean four years ago and I look forward to seeing everyone. In my past work with the staff, I have found them to be great to work with and passionate about the profession. I want to make sure that we can capture that passion and give them what they need in terms of volunteers and resources to carry out the Strategic Plan.

ASCO:  What drew you to optometry? What did you find most appealing about the field of optometry?

DD: I initially thought I would go into law. During my gap year between college and graduate school, I was talking to my Doctor of Optometry about going to law school and he said he didn’t picture me as a lawyer. He told me he thought I would be a great optometrist. He convinced me to spend a day at his office, where I saw many different aspects of optometry, including vision therapy, which I found eye-opening. He turned my whole perspective around and I went to optometry school for the next 4 years.

Two things have really continued my passion for optometry. The first is the patients I have seen over the years. One of the greatest things about optometry is that you impact people for the rest of their lives. I had a private practice in the mid-90’s in Rochester and had many patients. Twenty years after selling that practice, I am still receiving letters and calls from, and running into at professional conferences, former patients who thank me for turning their lives around.

The second thing that has continued my passion for optometry is that I had tremendous mentors in my career. Even before I was in school, my optometrist changed my life path. Those mentors really inspired me and moved me forward.

ASCO: What drew you to teaching? How did you become so passionate about optometric education?

DD: When I was in private practice, I loved the patients and the impact we were having on their lives, but what I hadn’t expected was the teaching bug had really bit me when I was a clinical assistant professor at SUNY. As a Doctor of Optometry you impact a lot of lives, but as an optometric educator, you impact all the lives of the students’ patients as well. It really is an exponential impact. I’m very passionate enlarging the future of our profession and what we can do for patients. I felt the most effective way to do that was to get into optometric education.

It was a privilege to work with Dr. Billy Cochran, who was president of Southern College of Optometry at the time, who made a big impact in what I saw in optometric education and who taught me strong leadership qualities. Working with people like him and others in optometric education has really shown me this is a great way to serve the profession as well as to enrich and enlarge the profession. This ASCO presidency term is just another step in my attempt to serve this profession that I love so much.

ASCO: If you were speaking with a student who is interested in becoming a Doctor of Optometry or with a student who has the aptitude but may not know about optometry, what advice would you give them?

DD: I would ask them, “How do you picture yourself living the rest of your life and in your career? Do you want to serve others and influence their ability to live better lives?” I think that optometry is a great way to do that, which is not readily apparent – making it even more important. We need our visual systems to serve us comfortably and tirelessly throughout the day, and there is no other profession that can address that need. I would say to a student that becoming an optometrist gives you the opportunity to impact the success of others throughout their whole life.

ASCO: On a more personal note, tell us a little about your life outside of the workplace. What was the last vacation you took? What are some of your hobbies?

DD: My son studied for a semester in Florence. He was studying architecture – couldn’t convince him to do optometry! He does make an impact on vision though, as architecture affects the buildings and infrastructure we look at every day. We visited him in Florence and then also went to London and Paris. That was a great trip. Our daughter had also spent a semester abroad in London so when we went to London on this trip, she showed us around that big city. I love traveling because I always try to keep my mind open to what other people experience. I find that it enriches my mind to know what other people’s experiences are like.

As for hobbies, I do a lot of reading and too much binge watching of Netflix and Hulu. I’m very excited for the new season of Kimmy Schmidt to come out. What I miss about my time in New York was I saw a lot of plays and watched a lot of baseball games. I don’t do a lot of that anymore, but I used to love doing that.

ASCO: You have served as the Dean of the Michigan College of Optometry at Ferris State University since 2013. Tell us a little about your school and your experience being a proud Bulldog. What have been some of your favorite things about living in Michigan?

DD: I never saw myself as a Dean but someone who knew my passion for the profession convinced me to apply for the job at Ferris State University. I interviewed and I loved it. The people up here are wonderful. One of the best things about being a Bulldog is that the people at Ferris State University are passionate about the students. The population is incredibly diverse. A lot of students are first generation college students. I was the first in my family to attend college, so for me, I feel a real personal connection there.

Michigan is similar to where I grew up in upstate New York so it was like coming home when I came to this job. After 16 years in Memphis, which is very different than New York, it really felt like coming home. It’s great to have four seasons again. After you make it through the cold winter, you are rewarded with the beautiful spring, summer, and fall. Big Rapids is a cute, small town and because it’s a college town there are many activities to do. It’s just been a really great move for us.

ASCO: And lastly, our intern, Amanda, is graduating this May and plans to pursue a career in public health in the future. Amanda asks, what common behaviors do you believe are strongly affecting the vision of the public? What advice do you have for someone who is passionate about improving vision at the broader level of public health?

DD: Vision is one of those aspects of daily life that people do not recognize impacts them. I hear people all the time say, “I have trouble looking at a map for directions,” and “I fall asleep when I read.” All of those are symptoms of different visual problems. I think that’s a big public health need – to educate the public on why their vision is so important. Itching eyes, fatigue, and headaches are all often caused by visual problems. We also have a public health crisis in this country with diabetes. Everyday Doctors of Optometry are making the first diagnosis of diabetes through the their detection of the ocular signs of diabetes.

I think the biggest impact on public health our profession could make is to convince more people to come into an optometrist’s office for a comprehensive eye exam. I can’t tell you how many people have never had an eye exam because they believe they can see 20/20. At the same time, though, a lot of those people hate reading and always skip around on pages and they often feel really fatigued when working on the computer. It’s a shame that 20/20 is assumed to be perfect vision when 20/20 vision is only one aspect of visual health.

People struggle with settling with their vision every day because they don’t realize they’re struggling. Many people are losing their vision to diabetes and glaucoma. This is a real public health problem and optometrists must work with public health officials and other healthcare practitioners to improve everyone’s visual welfare.

Thank you for your time Dr. Damari! We wish you the best of luck as president!

 

 

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The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) is a non-profit association representing the interests of optometric education. Founded in 1941 and headquartered in Rockville, MD, ASCO is committed to achieving excellence in optometric education and to helping its member institutions prepare well-qualified graduates for entrance into the profession of optometry. Its membership encompasses the schools and colleges of optometry in the United States and Puerto Rico. A number of optometry schools outside the United States are affiliate members.

 

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ASCO participated in MediaplanetUSA’s Vision and Hearing campaign where we joined forces with industry leaders and advocates to raise awareness of the the millions of Americans currently living with some form of vision or hearing impairment. Learn about the technologies being developed to give people affected by these disabilities hope as well as gain valuable information for protecting the most valued sense: vision. The campaign was distributed through USAToday on March 18th 2016 and online.

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ROCKVILLE, MD, December 1, 2016 – The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry’s (ASCO) Diversity and Cultural Competency Committee (DCCC) is pleased to announce their Case Studies in Cultural Competency is available.

For those wanting to incorporate cultural competency into their teaching or clinical efforts, this must-have tool is a downloadable compendium and contains the seven winning and best case studies from two years of entries to the ASCO Cultural Case Study Competition for Students and Residents.

“As a collection, these are nothing less than amazing. When we asked for case studies, I imagine none of us anticipated what we would get,” according to Dr. Janet Leasher Professor/Director of Community Outreach at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry. “[I] am very grateful to our young colleagues for contributing such powerful case studies. They are [also] written in such an intimate way, as if I am sitting in the exam room with the doctor and patient feeling and seeing everything they are experiencing.”

Each case study describes patient-based encounters in detail and how cultural competency played a role. The studies offer details regarding patient-centered attitude, knowledge and skills as well as the dilemma or circumstance pertaining to cultural awareness/competency and how the situation was handled, and what was learned from it. A “case discussion questions” section is also included in the document.

“The case studies will no doubt generate important conversations among faculty and students,” says Dr. Larry J. Davis, Dean of the University of Missouri at St. Louis College of Optometry and Chair of the DCCC. “Ultimately, the committee looks forward to learning how the studies are incorporated into the teaching and learning experiences at the schools and colleges of optometry.”

This valuable resource was made possible by Walmart’s generous funding.

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The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) is a non-profit association representing the interests of optometric education. Founded in 1941 and headquartered in Rockville, MD, ASCO is committed to achieving excellence in optometric education and to helping its member institutions prepare well-qualified graduates for entrance into the profession of optometry. Its membership encompasses the schools and colleges of optometry in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. A number of optometry schools outside the United States are affiliate members.

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ROCKVILLE, MD, June 30, 2016 – The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2016 Special Recognition Awards.

R. Mike Daley, The Vision Council’s Chief Executive Officer, is this year’s Industry Leadership Award winner.

The Industry Leadership Award recognizes an individual from a current or past ASCO Corporate Contributor Partner who has demonstrated exemplary support of ASCO and its member institutions. The individual serves as an example of his/her colleagues in the industry; and has made exceptional and meaningful contributions to the advancement of ASCO and optometric education.

Mr. Daley is recognized for his long history of support of ASCO and his enthusiasm, professionalism and leadership. He has consistently championed programs that have advanced and enhanced optometric education and have benefited students, faculty and residents.

“I am incredibly honored to receive the Industry Leadership Award from ASCO and am proud to support their commitment to promoting and advancing excellence in optometric education,” says Daley. “In return, I pledge to continue as an advocate for optometry related causes in the vision community, particularly those that educate the public about eye health and the importance of annual eye care.”

Additional awardees are: ASCO Lifetime Achievement Award, Dr. Morris Berman, Southern California College of Optometry at Marshall B. Ketchum University; and ASCO Rising Star Awardees, Dr. Nathan Lighthizer, Northeastern State University, Oklahoma College of Optometry and Dr. Nicole Ross, New England College of Optometry.

Mr. Daley and his fellow awardees were recognized during ASCO’s Annual Luncheon on Wednesday, June 29 in Boston, MA.

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The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) is a non-profit association representing the interests of optometric education. Founded in 1941 and headquartered in Rockville, MD, ASCO is committed to achieving excellence in optometric education and to helping its member institutions prepare well-qualified graduates for entrance into the profession of optometry. Its membership encompasses the schools and colleges of optometry in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. A number of optometry schools outside the United States are affiliate members.

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