Dear Friends and Colleagues:
It is my pleasure to share with you the recent accomplishments and future directions of the Department of Ophthalmology. We continue to focus on collaboration in our core missions of academic health care: patient care, education, research and service.
Our Patient Care Services have expanded in scope and depth. We have been providing our full line of eye care services to patients at the Burr Ridge office for 18 months now with great patient satisfaction. Our Diagnostic Testing Service (DTS) now provides referring physicians the opportunity to send patients for testing at our Maywood office. We will be opening our first tele-retina service at the Loyola Elmhurst satellite office in September. Diabetic patients will now be able to have their annual retinal screening exam without making a separate eye appointment with the addition of a small pupil fundus camera at this office. Shivan Tekwani is the Director of the DTS and will provide reports through EPIC to the referring primary care physicians. Patients will certainly appreciate the convenience of this added service.
Our Educational Programs remain strong and the Department of Ophthalmology continues to offer outstanding resident training as one of the best clinical programs in Chicago and the Midwest. With all full-time faculty and residents having iPads for clinical and educational programs, the department is leading the way forward in educational technology. We are also promoting a Chicago Educational Consortium which will link the educational programs of all the academic centers through the file sharing program Dropbox. Loyola will also host one of the citywide wet labs planned for 2012-2013, focusing on non-cataract microsurgical techniques available for the residents from all 6 training programs. Most of the Educational and Research Department programs have been supported over the years by generous gifts from the Perritt Charitable Foundation.
Our CME Programs continue to be strong with outstanding national Fall Cataract/Glaucoma Symposium and our Alumni/Mission Day as well as local (Chicago Subspecialty Guest Lecture Series) speakers and agendas addressed to the comprehensive ophthalmologist. Our weekly Grand Rounds which occur on Wednesdays at 4:30 have been augmented to include a Loyola guest speaker outside of ophthalmology to provide a more interdisciplinary clinical focus. My intent is to emphasize collaboration and encourage a broad exchange of ideas to create the highest quality programs.
Our Research Enterprise has expanded to include Evan Stubbs, Jr., PhD and most recently Cynthia von Zee, PhD and Kelly Langert, PhD who joined our department in 2012. Dr. Stubbs has been a valued and productive Hines research collaborator for many years. As Director of Basic Science Research Services in the department, he has established a solid research program for the residency, improved our submission process and fostered further collaborative efforts with the basic science faculty. Our grant support includes Merit (Hines VA) and the Illinois Society for the Prevention of Blindness, industry support for 2 clinical studies, and a major gift from the Richard A. Perritt Charitable Foundation. All residents have assigned research faculty mentors with the goal of an ARVO presentation and manuscript submission for each resident. In 2012, Loyola residents received the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place Beem Fisher Awards from the Chicago Ophthalmological Society (COS) for outstanding research by Chicagoland residents.
Our tradition of International Service was buttressed in 2010 by a generous gift from the Thomas Stamm Family. The Stamm Foreign Mission Endowment will provided support for 2 mission trips per year by faculty and residents. In 2012, we partnered with Loyola Alumnus, Ahsan Khan (2004) who is Director of Humanity First Guatemala. We traveled in October 2012 with other Ophthalmologists from University of Illinois to a hospital in Salud y Paz, outside of Chichicastenango where we had provided mission eye care in prior years.
I am excited about our recent accomplishments and look forward to achieving the department’s vision as an academic and educational leader in the Midwest. I welcome your feedback and appreciate your continued support. I look forward to seeing many of our alumni and friends at the Annual AAO Loyola Alumni Reception on Saturday, November 10, 2012 at the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) here in Chicago.
Warmly,
Charles S. Bouchard, MD
The John P. Mulcahy Professor and Chairman
Department of Ophthalmology
