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BLOG: A salute to our past
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Last month, I had the unique opportunity to attend the celebration of my father’s 50-year anniversary of his graduation from the Massachusetts College of Optometry (today, the New England College of Optometry). I must applaud the college for doing a fantastic job of honoring the Class of 1966 with a weekend of activity.
The culmination of the event was the graduation ceremony of the Class of 2016, where the 50-year honorees sat on the stage in full academic regalia. The mix of the of Dad’s gang of traditional, in-the-trench, “eyeball optometrists” with the progressive faculty and the shiny new graduates with their medically based primary care education was striking in many ways.
My dad has been retired from practice for many years. In spite of this, he keeps up with the profession and is always interested in the new technology. He taught my older optometrist son how to fit and adjust glasses and my younger optometry student son how to edge lenses in the lab as he worked his way through school. He mentored most of my optometric family in how to relate to patients and work to solve their unique vision problems.
At the reunion, most of his classmates had retired from practice. A notable exception was one of the younger members of the class and my childhood babysitter. Dr. Jim Georgis is still in active practice in Pueblo, Colo. Dr. Jim had been the notable exception to his group of eyeball optometrists. He developed an interest in the optometric management of traumatic brain injury and has been a pioneer in this field. I have been a recent student of this fascinating aspect of our profession, and Dr. Jim took time out of his party to teach me some of the unique procedures and treatments that he has learned in his 50 years of practical experience.
As the weekend unfolded, I noted that this interesting mix of seasoned veterans, academic leaders and transitioning students shared their different perspectives in a thoughtful and respectful manner. The new graduates were surprised to learn that some of their recent experiences at the college had been shared by optometry students of the 1960s. But then the reunion class was surprised to hear about the medical education and externship experiences of the new doctors. The faculty often was able to bridge the gap and discuss how the changes in the profession required a different approach to optometric education. The Class of 1966 felt that the bulk of its education was spent on the technical aspects of optometry, while the Class of 2016 had more training on analyzing data often collected by new technology and developing diagnosis and management plans.
As practicing optometrists, we spend much of our time in continuing education learning about applying new technology and learning new procedures. Yet some of the best optometry is still done with a bright retinoscope and a trial frame. Good optometrists are good listeners with strong people skills. It was refreshing to hear about the roots of optometry and learn that some things never really change.
I want to thank my dad and the Class of 1966 for teaching me some new things and giving me some different perspectives on our profession. I want to thank the New England College of Optometry for the insight to cherish and honor its alumni. Optometry is a big family with much to learn from each other, old and new, as we take our profession into the future.