Two years out of optometry school, I was approached by Dr. Stuart Cohn to set up a Motorist Vision Symposium. That was in 1982, just over thirty years ago. It was successful, so we decided to do another one the following year; both ended up winning a Governor’s Award. This adventure led to my chairing POA’s CE committee for a few years and, then ten years later, joining the Medical Advisory Board for PennDOT, on which I’ve served ever since.
Well, on Sunday, March 24, POA will host the Triginta (thirty year) Motorists’ Vision Seminar, inviting some of the foremost researchers in visual perception and motorist vision: Drs. Chris Johnson, D. Alfred Owens and Mark Wilkinson. Additionally, we have invited Rich Kirkpatrick, driver safety manager at PennDOT, to provide us with an update on PennDOT policies and regulations. After their presentations, we will have an open panel with our speakers to field audience questions and foster interactive discussion. Dr. Paul Freeman and I will join the panel, and Dr. Joe Ruskiewicz from PCO will serve as our moderator for the conference.
To briefly acquaint you with our featured speakers:
Dr. Chris Johnson received his PhD from Penn State under the tutorage of Dr. Herschel Leibowitz (PSU’s Evan Pugh Professor and a recipient of POA’s 1987 William Van Essen Award). Dr. Johnson also holds an honorary doctorate from SUNY and is now postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Iowa. He has been the recipient of the Academy of Optometry’s prestigious Glenn Fry award, numerous awards from the Academy of Ophthalmology, and was awarded the Senior Scientific Investigator Award from Research to Prevent Blindness. In addition to motorist vision, his research has been heavily influential in the development of our modern automated perimetry, the Devers glaucoma risk calculator, and he was a research member on the OHT study.
Working with Dr. Johnson, Dr. Mark Wilkinson is a research optometrist and a clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of Iowa. He is the director of the Vision Rehabilitation Service at the university’s Carver Family Center for Macular Degeneration and medical director of the university’s optical division. His research interests are in two general areas: 1) inherited eye diseases, where he is involved in a study that is genotyping and phenotyping all individuals with Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis, and 2) driving with reduced visual functioning (e.g. RP and strokes). He is also currently researching the affects of driving with an advanced aspheric IOL and aspheric CL using the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS). An article describing this advanced simulator system at University of Iowa appeared in the 2012 January issue of Optometry: Journal of the American Optometric Association.
Dr. D. Alfred (Fred) Owens also earned his PhD under Dr. Herschel Leibowitz at Penn State. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT and has been an invited visiting scholar at universities in Germany and Australia, University of Michigan and Clemson University. Dr. Owens now holds an honorary chair (Charles A. Dana professor) at Franklin & Marshall College, where he received the Lindback Award for distinguished teaching. He has served on numerous advisory boards, including the National Academy of Science, National Eye Institute of NIH, US Transportation Research Board, etc. His research interests have focused on fundamental variations of perception and their implications on human performance under challenging situations.
Rich Kirkpatrick was named division manager for driver safety in PennDOT’s Bureau of Driver Licensing in June 2011. He had served as PennDOT’s press secretary from 1996 until 2011. Prior to joining PennDOT, Kirkpatrick worked for 24 years as a reporter, editor and manager for The Associated Press in Philadelphia and Harrisburg. He started his professional career while in college working as an airborne traffic reporter and news writer for the CBS radio station in Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Temple University.
Okay, aside from convincing you that your clinical experience will not be complete or well-rounded if you don’t attend this conference, what the heck does this have to do with the editorial title?
Well, as a disgruntled education major at Penn State, convinced that our public schools were not going to be very progressive, I was becoming more interested in how perception and vision affected learning. Since the education and psychology buildings (Chambers/Moore) were adjacent at Penn State, increasingly brown bag lunches were spent listening to brother Fred and Chris talking about vision and perception. Ultimately, I was hired as a research assistant in Dr. Leibowitz’s lab … which led to optometry school and my rambling about what goes around, comes around.
Grab this day of CE – you won’t regret it. It will be much more than a generic motorists’ vision seminar and will cross numerous visual boundaries. It should also be very aligned with those interested in low vision and those interested in surviving on our highways.
Visit POA's Meetings & CE Programs page to register.
Robert L. Owens, O.D., F.A.A.O.
President
Pennsylvania Optometric Association
http://www.poaeyes.org/
