Addressing Inequity in Access to Glaucoma Services

Suzanne Gilbert, PhD, MPH

IAPB North America Regional Chair, Seva Foundation

Suzanne S Gilbert, PhD, MPH, is a respected innovator with 40 years’ experience designing and scaling comprehensive, equitable eye care services in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Dr. Gilbert is currently Seva Foundation’s Senior Director for Research & Strategic Opportunities. She is also cofounder of Seva Foundation, which, along with its partners in the Global Sight Initiative Network, has restored sight to more than 5 million people. Since Seva’s founding, Dr. Gilbert has played a variety of roles within the organization, as one of its first volunteers, Executive Director, and Program Director.

She is always looking for innovative ways to bring quality eye care to more people around the world. A social epidemiologist by training, Dr. Gilbert has participated in the design and implementation of landmark community-based studies of the prevalence of blindness and associated factors beginning with a landmark blindness study in Nepal in the early 1980s. She scaled training of ophthalmic personnel worldwide and has built consortia to fast-track innovations in eye care service delivery. This work draws on her experiences in India, which began at age 20, leading to a Fulbright study and work in maternal and child health. Her focus later turned to blindness prevention, thanks to the influence of Seva co-founder Dr. G Venkataswamy of the Aravind Eye Care System.

David Friedman, MD, PhD, MPH

Massachusetts Eye & Ear

Dr. Friedman is the Alfred and Diane Kaneb Professor of Ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Director of the Glaucoma Division, and the Medical Director of Clinical Research. Until May, 2019, he was the Alfred Sommer Professor of Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with joint appointments as Professor in the Departments of Epidemiology and International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He also was the director of the Dana Center for Preventive Ophthalmology, the only World Health Organization collaborating center for vision in the United States. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale College, received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and received an MPH and a PhD in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Friedman has pursued excellence in clinical care, research and education and is considered a leader in all three fields. As a clinician he has been a “Best Doctor” for many years, and has been selected for the Power 100 list of leading ophthalmologists globally in 2016, 2018 and 2020.

Dr. Friedman’s research has focused on angle closure glaucoma, ophthalmic epidemiology, and glaucoma therapy with an emphasis on medication adherence among glaucoma patients. Dr. Friedman co-edited a definitive book on angle-closure glaucoma and has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles. He has served on the editorial boards of Ophthalmology, the Cochrane Collaboration, and the Journal of Glaucoma, and plays a leadership role in the World Glaucoma Association. He was the Senior Ophthalmologist for Helen Keller International, a large non-profit organization dedicated to alleviating blindness worldwide and is a Board member of Orbis International. He recently completed a CDC-funded program to identify novel approaches to screen underserved populations for eye diseases, especially glaucoma, and helped lead a Hilton Foundation project to work towards expanding the care provided by successful eyecare institutions in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Friedman is world renown for his contributions to the study of the mechanisms, epidemiology and prevention of angle-closure glaucoma. Over the last 20 years he has worked closely with researchers in Singapore, Guangzhou, Beijing and south India on this research. He identified novel dynamic risk factors for angle closure. His work formed the foundation for two seminal studies of angle closure glaucoma treatment including the EAGLE Trial and the Zhongshan Angle Closure Prevention (ZAP) Study, both of which were published in Lancet. Dr. Friedman was a key member of the EAGLE Trial study team, a pivotal research study that demonstrated that early lens extraction is effective at treating angle-closure glaucoma. He was the co-principal investigator of the ZAP study which screened over 10,000 individuals in order to determine if prophylactic laser iridotomy is effective at preventing angle closure glaucoma. Dr. Friedman is a member of the Glaucoma Research Society (limited to the 100 leading glaucoma researchers) and the Alcon Research Institute (composed of the top 6 researchers in ophthalmology each year).

Leon W. Herndon, Jr., MD

Professor of Ophthalmology, Duke University Medical Center,
Durham, North Carolina

Leon W. Herndon, Jr., MD, is Professor of Ophthalmology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. He earned his MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and served his internship and residency at the University of North Carolina Hospital in Chapel Hill. Dr. Herndon then completed a clinical fellowship in glaucoma at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Dr. Herndon is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and was a member of the first class of the Leadership Development Program. He has authored over 100 papers, lectured nationally and internationally, and participated in several research projects related to glaucoma. He currently serves as Chief of the Glaucoma Division at the Duke University Eye Center where he has trained 74 clinical fellows. Dr. Herndon has been recognized for his service in the community by receiving the Senior Achievement Award from the AAO and the Dedicated Humanitarian Service Award presented by Dr. Leonel Fernandez Reyna, President of the Dominican Republic, on the occasion of the 2nd Ophthalmology Mission in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Herndon is the recipient of the Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award from the UNC School of Medicine, and was the Surgery Day Lecturer at the American Glaucoma Society Annual Meeting in 2019. He is founder of the North Carolina Glaucoma Club, and the chair of the Glaucoma Clinical Committee of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons as well as secretary of the American Glaucoma Society.

Dr. Herndon’s research interests include studying novel treatment approaches in the diagnosis and management of glaucoma. He has ongoing research projects evaluating the high prevalence of primary open angle glaucoma in Ghana, West Africa, where he travels yearly.

Ruth Shoge

Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania College of Optometry at Salus University,
Philadelphia, PA

Dr. Ruth Shoge received her Doctor of Optometry degree from and completed a residency in Pediatrics and Vision Therapy at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO). She is the lead instructor of the Health Care, Professionalism, and Diversity course and is an instructor in the Binocular Vision I and Acquired Brain Injury courses for the 3-year and 4-year optometry programs. She is also the lead instructor for the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Behavioral Optometry Advanced Studies domestic and international programs.

Dr. Shoge received her Master of Public Health from Temple University with a concentration in Social and Behavioral Science. During that time, she developed a special interest in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which includes addressing health disparity concerns through cultural competency training, recruitment and retention strategies, and curriculum reform.  Her final master’s project was titled “Social Experiences of Underrepresented Minority Optometry Students”. She is the Director of the Summer Enrichment Program at PCO, a program aimed at improving the recruitment, matriculation, and graduation of underrepresented minority students. She currently serves on the DEI committee at Salus University and as Chair of ASCO’s Diversity and Cultural Competency Committee, which promotes racial and ethnic diversity and inclusion initiatives at optometric institutions. She recently created and is chair of an advisory board at PCO that will review the curriculum and implement strategies to ensure continuity in culturally competent education from matriculation to graduation. Dr. Shoge also recently started her own consulting company to deliver lectures and workshops to academic, research, corporate, and student members of the optometric industry.

As a clinical educator, Dr. Shoge’s specialties include pediatric care, binocular vision disorders, vision disorders related to TBI, and vision therapy. In the clinical setting, Dr. Shoge aims to provide and model clinical competence and cultural humility to her students as they care for their patients. She serves as an investigator in several federally funded research studies which investigate pediatric and adult visual conditions such as amblyopia, strabismus, myopia, and concussion-related vision disorders. She has also had the opportunity to present nationally and internationally about binocular vision, vision therapy, and the management of concussion-related vision disorders and has delivered cultural competency workshops.

Steve A. Arshinoff MD FRCSC

Associate Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences,
University of Toronto.

Steve A. Arshinoff MD FRCSC was born in Montreal, graduated from Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, Texas, and completed his ophthalmic training at The University of Toronto, Canada, where he is Associate Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences. His areas of research interest include ophthalmic viscosurgical devices and related surgical techniques, phacoemulsification machine design, immediately sequential bilateral cataract surgery, endophthalmitis prophylaxis, and medical outreach programs.

He is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery and has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and 38 medical textbook chapters. He has presented >1,100 academic lectures worldwide. Dr. Arshinoff is the designer of the OMA-CNIB (Ontario Medical Association – Canadian National Institute for the Blind) Mobile Medical Eye Care Unit (MMECU) and is the medical director of this program to the North of Ontario, Canada. He is the Founding President of the Toronto Ophthalmological Society, the Eye Foundation of Canada, and the International Society of Bilateral Cataract Surgeons (iSBCS) and is a Past President of the International Intra-ocular Implant Club, the parent society of the American, European and all other Societies of Cataract and Refractive Surgery globally.

Nancy Lynn

BrightFocus

Nancy Lynn is Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships at BrightFocus Foundation, a US-based nonprofit that funds global research to accelerate scientific advancement and generate greater public awareness of Alzheimer’s disease, Macular Degeneration and Glaucoma.

Ms. Lynn also raises funds and catalyzes distribution partnerships to launch disease-related documentary feature films. She worked on the award-winning Alzheimer’s-related film Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me, and she is Executive Producer for James Keach’s Turning Point, which captures the human side of the 30+-year search for diagnostic and therapeutic breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s disease.

Ms. Lynn previously held positions as Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and as Senior Vice President at the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for Humanism in Medicine.

Ms. Lynn worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York from 1998 – 2009 in various roles including Director of Global Business Development (supervising the licensing of scientific intellectual property and establishing collaborations with science institutions and government agencies worldwide) and Director of Corporate Relations. From 1996 – 2004, Ms. Lynn also served as a staff lecturer at The Cloisters, the branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe.

Ms. Lynn is a former member of the national board of trustees for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America and of the board of trustees for the Martha Graham Dance Company.

Ms. Lynn received her B.A. in the history of art and architecture from Columbia University (Valedictorian) and her M.A. in the history of art and architecture from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.