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Wills Eye Hospital fellowship program celebrates 40 years of education, research
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PHILADELPHIA — Former fellows of Wills Eye Hospital returned here to celebrate the program’s 40th anniversary and pay tribute to the man who trained them to help patients achieve a sense of “wholeness.”
George L. Spaeth, MD, was not only director of the 2-day scientific session, he was also the unofficial guest of honor, as many of the speakers shared research he had published with them or fond memories of their time as fellows.
Dr. Spaeth also had a hand in choosing topics for the speakers, who included former fellows and other distinguished researchers.
“We tried to put together a conference that’s a little bit different,” he told attendees, noting that the goal was to organize a symposium that would be useful in both the professional and personal lives of the participants.
“One of the things I’d like this conference to deal with is how we know what we know, how accurate it is,” he said. “I think we need to realize how fallible we are as physicians.”
Dr. Spaeth told the audience of about 100 glaucoma specialists that physicians must learn to embrace both objective measures of health as well as the patient’s perception of feeling "whole." He said he wanted the conference to address the worldwide effects of glaucoma as well as its variability among individuals.
"It’s interesting how little science we know when it comes to individuals. We’re biased that way," he said. "It’s also about our own blindness as a profession, as individuals. That blindness is not caused by glaucoma but by fear."
Former fellows and guests thanked Dr. Spaeth for his dedication to a program that has evolved into the International Society of Spaeth Fellows.
From the podium, former fellow Ronald L. Fellman, MD, said that when Dr. Spaeth asked him to recall his most important contribution to the fellowship, he immediately thought of his 1982 founding of the "pizza rounds."
"What could be better than sitting around, talking about glaucoma and eating pizza?" he asked.
Although not a fellow herself, speaker Eve J. Higginbotham, MD, said she and Dr. Spaeth "have a lot in common" in their approach to glaucoma: to go beyond the optic disc and to think critically and analytically.
Roger Hitchings, MD, referred with pride to the red stickers on former fellows’ name tags, which showed who was a former fellow. "I think all those with little red dots on their badges look around at the others and think, ‘You missed something,’" he said.