The Visionary Fall 2009

The Visionary – Fall 2009 • Page # The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry’s (ASCO) “Each One, Reach One” campaign is a practitioner- based career promotion effort that encourages optometrists to talk to their patients and other gifted young people about optometry as a future career. The goal of the “Each One, Reach One” program is to increase optometry’s national applicant pool to three applicants for each first-year position and to develop an applicant pool that reflects the diversity of the U.S. population. According to a 10-year study on incoming students at all schools and colleges of optometry, the majority of students indicated their decision to choose optometry as a career was due to the encouragement of individual optometrists. However, although the number of unduplicated applicants has increased 27 percent since 2002, it is still below the number of students who applied in 1999. You are optometry’s best advocates—your enthusiasm and commitment to the profession will encourage students to choose optometry as a career. An important note: This program is not about increasing the number of graduates from the nation’s optometry schools. It’s about making sure those who are selected continue to reflect the profession’s ability to attract bright and caring young people. Join Now! It’s easy to become a member of the “Each One, Reach One” Career Promotion Corps and promote your profession to the optometrists of tomorrow. Just go to the ASCO Web site at www.opted.org and click on Career Promotion Corps or contact Paige Pence, director of student and professional affairs, at ASCO at ppence@opted.org . “Each One, Reach One” (EORO) Campaign Join the ASCO Career Promotion Corps! Several years ago, I decided to go back to school “just for fun.” I looked for the right program for several months before finding it in a place I had never considered looking. In June 2005, I was strolling through the exhibit hall at the AOA Conference when someone stepped out into the aisle in front of me and asked if I wanted to learn more about a master’s program for optometrists. The representative at the NSU College of Optometry’s exhibit hall booth explained the program, and as I left the booth, I called my husband on my cell phone to tell him I had found my master’s program. I enrolled in the NSU College of Optometry online Master of Science in Clinical Vision Research program in April 2006 and graduated in December 2008. The program was the perfect fit for my career and lifestyle. I work in research and development at Alcon Laboratories, Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas, where my responsibilities include both clinical research and patient care, which have always been very important to me. During the program, I had a beautiful baby girl, Reese Elisabeth, and was due to give birth to a baby boy in August 2009. I needed a program that would allow flexible hours while also allowing me to continue to work full-time, travel for work and leisure, and—most importantly—be a wife and mother. This program not only met those needs, but the education I received was outstanding and the instructors exceeded my expectations. For my thesis research project, I designed and conducted a clinical study to optimize the conjunctival staining method using lissamine green stain. A sufficient volume of stain is needed for the maximum staining potential to be reached; however, excessive volumes of stain result in pooling of the stain in the conjunctival folds and overflow onto the cheek. The time after instillation to assess conjunctival staining is also critical since an assessment made too soon or too late will result in a staining score that is lower than the maximum staining potential. The study results indicated that 5.0 µL was the optimal volume of lissamine green one percent to assess conjunctival staining, and that conjunctival staining was best observed two minutes after its instillation. The clinical application of the study results will be valuable for the characterization of ocular surface disorders, improvement of future ocular surface study designs, and comparison of studies that utilize similar methodology. The study results were presented at The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in May. Dr. Ramsey Reminisces About Her M.S. in Clinical Vision Research Experience By Alison Ramsey, O.D., M.S., Manager, Clinical Science Alcon Research, Ltd. – Fort Worth, Texas