EyeCode Media

Dr. McElroy, founded Ted A. McElroy, OD, PC in 1994 in Tifton, GA. He is a graduate of Southern College of Optometry. In 2004 he served as the Georgia Optometric Association President and is currently serving as the treasurer of SECO International. Dr. McElroy was the recipient of the 1997 GA Optometric Association’s Young Optometrist of the Year, the 2005 GOA Optometrist of the year and the 2009 GOA Bernard Kahn Award Recipient. His passion is his connection with his patients. His goal is to exceed his patient’s expectations, service and to offer his patients a better quality of life. Dr. McElroy strives to provide his patients with an experience that cannot be found anywhere else in eye care. He is continually looking to industries and businesses outside Optometry to find these examples of excellence. Dr. McElroy is a founding member of The Roya Enterprise, an organization dedicated to assisting aspiring practice owners. He enjoys speaking to students on the joys of private practice and is an author published in Optometric Management, also serving on their editorial board. He spends a great deal of his time with his wife and two sons traveling to swim meets, going to Disney World and enjoying time with them.

Dr. Jeffrey Krohn was unsure of where his future would take him as a college student. After bouncing around from Architecture (Cal Poly, SLO) and Business (Point Loma College) and Engineering (Fresno State), his father helped him “see” that his future was as an optometrist. After completing the optometric training, he was asked to join the same faculty that taught him for two yeas. With a desire to put down roots in the valley, he and his wife moved to Fresno in 1989 with their son, Austin. Over the past 20+ years in Fresno, they have been involved with church and community activities, have had 3 daughters (Aubrey, Olivia and Emmaline) and have been blessed with great staff and great friends. Dr. Krohn has a particular passion and interest in patients who require specialized and unique contact lens designs, and receives referrals from other doctors and organizations from up and down the central valley. We discuss Dr. Bob Vandervort, who was a mentor to both Jeff and I, and below is a picture of Jeff posing as Bob at a skit while he was in school:  

Dr. Scott Schachter founded Advanced Eyecare and the Eyewear Gallery Optometry in 1994 in Pismo Beach, California. He believes in the importance of providing full scope eye care for his patients and was one of the first optometrists in California to become glaucoma certified. Like many practitioners, the ocular surface disease was a neglected part of his practice for almost 2 decades. Then, in 2011, while undergoing his own LASIK preop visit, Dr. Schachter realized his own dry eye disease was causing the majority of his higher order aberrations. Dry eye disease was no longer limited to just the surface — Dr. Schachter started thinking of it as a vision disease. Since that auspicious LASIK preop visit, Dr, Schachter has worked to become a leader in the dry eye world. He has been published in Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science and is a regular columnist for Optometry Times and Ocular Surface News. In addition, he has presented papers at the American Academy of Optometry (AAO) and presented posters at AAO, American Optometric Association, and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. Check out The Ocular Surface Academy!

Caroline Blackie is an internationally recognized clinical and scientific expert in the field of dry eye with specific focus on meibomian gland dysfunction. She has authored and published over 40 scientific articles in this area. She currently serves as the Medical Director for Ocular Surface Disease for Johnson and Johnson Vision, providing medical and scientific leadership to drive and shape innovation in this therapeutic area.  Dr. Blackie joined Johnson and Johnson Vision after 12 years with TearScience. At TearScience, she served on the small team of individuals who imagined, designed, developed, tested, and brought to market all of the TearScience Products. Passionate about the patient experience, she also successfully divided her time between clinical research and development and private practice, accruing approximately 20 years of direct patient care experience in her career.  Her years in direct clinical care, fuel her desire to elevate and transform the standard of care towards a more proactive approach to ocular surface health. Brian Regan is a growth, launch and turnaround sales and marketing executive with history delivering innovation for patient care, revenue growth and significant investor value. Skilled in leadership of sales and marketing, business strategy, market research, KOL development, customer service, CRM, and metrics reflecting progress on KPI’s. 

Dr. Louis Catania is an internationally renowned lecturer on optometry’s role in diagnosis and treatment of anterior segment diseases. He was a Pennsylvania College of Optometry faculty member until 1995, serving as Associate Professor. Dr. Catania also directed the Center for Continuing and Post Graduate Education (now the Department of International and Continuing Education). As the first Director of the Center for International Studies, Dr. Catania played a pivotal role in expanding the College’s educational scope worldwide. He is the author of Primary Care of the Anterior Segment and an accompanying audio-visual series. Dr. Catania was named Alumnus of the Year in 1994. He has served as senior clinical consultant for Nicolitz Eye Consultants for the past 15 years. In 2013, Dr. Catania was named the American Academy of Optometry’s Eminent Service Awardee.  Dr. Catania was inducted into the National Optometry Hall of Fame in 2016.   To get the most current episodes of the Eye Documentaries Podcast, search "EyeDocs" in your favorite podcast app.

This weeks discussion was with Dr. Amanda Lee.  In addition to practicing optometry for 20 years, Dr. Lee has been a professional speaker and consultant for Alcon, Bausch & Lomb and MacuLogix. She earned her BA in Biology from Central Connecticut State University before earning a BS in Visual Science and Doctorate of Optometry from Pennsylvania College of Optometry.  She also completed a Residency in Primary Care/Ocular Disease at The Eye Institute in Philadelphia, PA.

Dr. Mike Rothschild began his practice from scratch in his wife's rural hometown and enjoyed immediate practice success that multiplied for several years. This success took more and more time away from what really mattered in his life. More patients led to more staff, more equipment and more hours at the office. Not being able to do it all, Mike's practice began to suffer until he realized that he didn't know how to lead a team.  He studied leadership strategies from some of the most successful businesses in the service industry and successfully implemented them into his own practice. He learned the importance of systems, communication and teamwork to reach goals that he could never attain alone. He now shares those experiences with doctors and their teams and has a unique ability to ask the right questions, to keep digging until he finds your individual "why". And it's different for everyone and most often it involves many aspects outside of the practice. Mike Rothschild graduated from the Southern College of Optometry in Memphis and was honored as an Outstanding Clinician. He lectures internationally on topics of practice management, leadership, contact lenses and ocular disease. He practices in Carrollton, GA and married to Christy. They have two children.

Dr. Shay graduated with honors from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008, where she majored in Rehabilitation Science. In 2012, she received her Doctor of Optometry degree from Southern College of Optometry (Memphis, Tennessee). In addition to graduating at the top of her class, she was also honored to receive the SCO Outstanding Clinician Award. Dr Shay is highly skilled in full scope optometry and has extensive experience in the specialties of Glaucoma, Contact Lenses, Dry Eye Disease, and Pediatrics. Dr. Shay participates in the InfantSEE program, which provides a free eye exam to babies 6-12 months old. One of her passions is early detection of vision problems in children. As part of her training, she worked at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where she had the opportunity to examine and treat soldiers with traumatic brain injuries. In 2018, Dr. Shay and Dr. Tim won the Hayes Center for Practice Excellence Award from their alma mater Southern College of Optometry for demonstrating excellence in private practice. Dr. Shay likes to travel, read, watch and play sports. She especially enjoys spending time with her husband, Dr. Tim, and their two daughters. For links to documents discussed in today's show click here!

Dr. Permann, a native of Pickstown, South Dakota, attended Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Chemistry. He completed his Doctor of Optometry degree at the University of Missouri – St Louis College of Optometry. He completed externships at several locations in the St. Louis area, the VA hospital in Kansas City, MO and at Vance Thompson Vision in Sioux Falls. He joined Dr. Menning’s practice in June of 2015 and is now the owner of 605 Vision, formerly Dr. LL Menning. His professional interests include comprehensive vision exams, ocular disease management, including diabetic exams, ocular surface disease, complex contact lens issues, and orthokeratology. He is an InfantSEE provider and a member of the American Optometric Association (AOA) and the South Dakota Optometric Society (SDOS).

Today I will share a snippet of one of our first episodes with Dr. Bob Vandervort.  The goal of the podcast is to explore the history of our profession, where we were, where we are and where we are going.  While you are enjoying this first episode you can subscribe to the Eye Documentary Podcast by typing EYEDOCS into the search tool of your favorite podcast app.  Check it out on iTunes here.