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Most Influential O.D.s
Jimmy D. Bartlett, Ocular Disease
He may not have known the answer then, but Dr. Bartlett has since become a leading authority on that question. In the past two decades he has helped disseminate the scientific knowledge that undergirds optometric primary eye care.
Dr. Bartlett has educated optometrists in multiple venues: as a professor of optometry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Optometry and
professor of pharmacology at the School of Medicine there; as co-editor of the seminal text Clinical Ocular Pharmacology (soon coming out in a fourth edition); and
as a frequent CE lecturer. He also maintains a private practice. "I'm able to practice things that I teach, and vice versa," he says. Dr. Bartlett has been at the forefront of research in ocular pharmacology. He took
part, for example, in the clinical investigation of loteprednol (Lotemax). He helped develop a model to identify high-IOP responders for clinical research. He also
helped formulate ophthalmic sprays for drug delivery for pediatric patients. "Jimmy really gave us credibility and respect as a therapeutic eye care profession
through his work, his efforts and his book," says Louis J. Catania, O.D., of Atlantic Beach, Fla. "He's a good person and I respect him immensely."
Dr. Bartlett sees optometrists coming into their own as the gatekeepers of primary eye care. "Had we not expanded our scope of practice into therapeutics and true
primary eye care during the '70s, '80s and '90s, I'm not sure if optometry would have survived as a solely refractive profession." His faith in the profession is bullish: He tells every new class of optometry students
that if he had to do it all over again, he would like to be in their class.
Irving J. Bennett, Practice Management Dr. Bennett's most influential mentor: Dr. Albert Fitch, founder of Pennsylvania College of Optometry and one of Dr. Bennett's professors as well. "He never used the word business, but what Dr. Fitch implied was that you
have to look at the profession of optometry as a small business, and be ethical and professional in doing it," Dr. Bennett says. Ethics and professionalism have been the cornerstones
of Dr. Bennett's philosophy ever since he opened his western Pennsylvania practice cold after World War II. He got involved in the AOA, the state association and community organizations. And, he built his practice upon
one of Dr. Fitch's credos: Communicate with your patients. His fingers were always itching to push the pen. Dr. Bennett edited the journal Pennsylvania Optometrists, then went on to be editor of the Journal of the American
Optometric Association until 1964. "One of last editorials was that optometry was in need of business sense, and what the profession needed was organized courses in
practice management," he says. In time, he would acquire and then sell Optometric Management magazine. In 1978 he started the Optifair conferences, predecessors
to today's Vision Expos. The legacy lives on in daughter Linda, an optometrist in Massachusetts, and son Donald, an O.D.-M.D. in Wisconsin. For optometry to flourish in the new millennium, Dr. Bennett says the profession
must achieve two goals: eye exams as a requirement to get a driver's license and to go to school. The idea is to "expand the pie." He adds: "Right now everyone says
there are too many optometrists and ophthalmologists. Well, they're not going to die off." One reason why is because they've become so business savvy, largely thanks to Irving J. Bennett, O.D. Linda Casser, Women In Optometry The 46-year-old Pensacola, Fla., native earned her O.D.
degree at the Indiana University School of Optometry in 1978, then completed a two-year primary care residency in Rochester, N.Y. From there she moved on to the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, serving as a primary
care chief and assistant professor. Then it was back to her alma mater, as assistant professor and director of the Indianapolis Eye Care Center. She became increasingly active in the Indiana
Optometric Association, serving ultimately as president. Meanwhile, she set aside time to work as the primary author of the Atlas of Primary Eyecare Procedures, published in a second edition in 1997.
Dr. Casser is now associate dean for academic programs at the Pacific University College of Optometry. She also serves on the board of directors of the National
Board of Examiners in Optometry. "Linda puts an intensity and a level of caring into whatever she gets into doing," says noted lecturer Louis J. Catania, O.D., of Atlantic
Beach, Fla. "And that's matched with intelligence, creativity and sophistication of thinking." Dr. Casser's many accomplishments caught the attention of the AOA. The
organization named her "Optometrist of the Year" in 1997. "That was really a high point for me, and was really the culmination of a lot of things," says Dr. Casser.
During her clinical career she has had the opportunity to care for underserved populations, especially the homeless. That's been a source of satisfaction. Says Dr.
Casser, "We truly can make a difference in their lives and help them achieve employability." Dr. Casser also gets satisfaction from seeing her former students excel in their
careers. "Watching them develop into accomplished colleagues is very exciting," she says. In Linda Casser, O.D., they have a worthy mentor to emulate.
Louis J. Catania, Ocular Disease Dr. Catania has challenged the profession to accept its
full-fledged role in health care. And, he prefers to show why rather than just tell. At lectures throughout the 1970s and 80s, Dr. Catania would sometimes smear over-the-counter polysporin externally on his eyelids, and
explain that in two minutes his ocular surface would have received a therapeutic dose. It helped his optometric colleagues get comfortable with therapeutics. "Lou focuses on the practical issues," says Jimmy D.
Bartlett, O.D., Dr. Catania's counterpart as "Most Influential O.D." in the Ocular Disease category. "He's a clinician who really carried the banner at the grassroots
level for primary eye care in '70s and '80s. ... In many ways he and I complemented each other." Besides his primary eye care practice in Rochester, N.Y., in the 1970s, Dr. Catania
pioneered eye services in a managed-care organization, the Genessee Valley Group Health Association. In 1978 he became adjunct associate professor at the
State University of New York State College of Optometry, where he started the first ambulatory primary care residency program. From 1980 until 1997, Dr. Catania was associate professor as well as director of
the Center for Continuing and Post-Graduate Education at Pennsylvania College of Optometry. There, Dr. Catania developed an educational course for certifying optometrists in therapeutics that became the blueprint for most states'
TPA-credentialing courses. Dr. Catania is also known for his useful reference book Primary Care of the Anterior Segment (1996). Now in Florida, Dr. Catania is an officer with Clear Vision Laser Centers and a consultant.
When asked about his impact on the profession, Dr. Catania responds, "I don't see myself as anything more than just an average optometrist who had a couple of unique opportunities and just wanted to share them with the profession."
William Feinbloom, Low Vision Over the next five decades Dr. Feinbloom earned a growing reputation as a miracle-worker in the field of low vision rehabilitation. Besides telescopic spectacles and
head-mounted expanded-field telescopes, he also designed a series of low vision microscopes and other visual aids. He also obtained an early patent on a contact lens design. "Obviously he was an extremely
bright man," observes Feinbloom protégé Sarah Appel, O.D., chief of services at the William Feinbloom Vision Rehabilitation Center at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry.
The clinician who devoted his life to helping low vision patients himself developed macular degeneration in his later years. That experience not only enhanced his
empathy for other AMD patients but also served as an intellectual exercise for a man of boundless curiosity. "He told me he was excited because he finally got a
chance to see what his patients had been experiencing," Dr. Appel says. "From day one, he taught us as interns to listen to what patients want, and from that you will be able to come up with the most appropriate management plan."
The Feinbloom legacy carries forward with son Richard, 53, president of low vision device supplier Designs for Vision in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. The youngest of five
children and the only one to go into eye care, Richard puts his finger on the key to his father's success: "He was never satisfied with what was available." Now that sounds like the mark of a true innovator. Alden N. Haffner, Education Dr. Haffner embraced formidable challenges right from
the start. In the late 1950s he transformed the financially troubled Optometric Center into a prosperous community clinic, teaching facility (launching the first optometric residency) and research institution. As president of
the New York State Optometric Association in the early 1960s, he pushed for the nation's first law mandating insurance payment for optometric services.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s optometric education outpaced the scope of practice. In fall 1967 Dr. Haffner invited the profession's leaders to New York to address the matter. From that conference came a movement to abandon the
profession's no-drug policy, a controversial strategy articulated by Dr. Haffner in a March 1968 speech to the New England Congress. Rhode Island soon passed the
nation's first law allowing O.D.s to use dilating drops, initiating a nationwide expansion of optometry's scope. Dr. Haffner's crowning achievement was the 1971 founding of the State University of
New York College of Optometry. He later moved to Albany, N.Y., where he served as SUNY's vice chancellor for research, graduate studies and professional programs. In 1987 he resumed the presidency of the optometry college, where he
currently presides. Dr. Haffner sees exciting times and profound challenges ahead. "We need major infusions of resources to keep up with the advancement of knowledge and
technology," he says. "Absent that kind of advancement, the profession is going to slow down in its growth, and any kind of slowdown is dangerous. Gotta keep punching away." Henry W. Hofstetter, Education
From that modest beginning grew a lifelong appetite for learning and teaching others. That proved infectious for successive generations of optometry students and faculty members at Ohio State University, the Los
Angeles College of Optometry (later SCCO) and Indiana University. He carried that curiosity abroad, where he served as a sort of unofficial ambassador of American optometry in visits to more than 40 countries.
But it's his influence on the optometric curriculum that Dr. Hofstetter, now 85 and retired in Bloomington, Ind., considers his most significant achievement. "As dean of two schools, actually three
[LACO, Indiana and Inter-American University in Puerto Rico], I naturally had administrative influence on the design of the curriculum and the direction the
courses were going," says the Windsor, Ohio, native. "I introduced a lot of my own personal philosophy into the courses. The design of the curriculum [featured] more
of a cultural and broad-based scientific background, rather than just a purely clinical approach." Ever modest, Dr. Hofstetter credits this approach to his teacher and longtime mentor at Ohio State, Glenn Fry, O.D.
A prolific author, Dr. Hofstetter has published more than 200 articles—many of them on his observations of optometric communities abroad—and four books, Optometry: Professional, Legal, and Economic Aspects (1948), Manual of Ocular
Tests (1948), Industrial Vision (1956), and, as co-author, Dictionary of Visual Science (1960). When told he was voted by our readers as one of the 20th century's most influential
figures, Dr. Hofstetter, ailing with Parkinson's disease yet still nimble of wit, remarked, "They must not be too well-informed." Voters knowledgeable about the
many important contributions of Henry W. Hofstetter, O.D., Ph.D., knew exactly what they were doing.
Robert A. Koetting, Practice Management
His foray into subspecialty optometry followed another of his contributions: developing the slit lamp. He and a partner set up a company that sold them. "We thought there was going to be some business in contact lenses,
so if you're going to get out on road and sell [slit lamps], you had to use them," Dr. Koetting says. A third-generation practitioner, he appreciates optometry's roots since his grandfather was an optician who fit glasses in his
jewelry store. His father was an optometrist, as is his brother, James, professor emeritus at University of Houston College of Optometry. Dr. Koetting authored four books, including Marketing, Managing and Contact
Lenses (Butterworth's). He's the only person to chair the AOA Contact Lens Section and the American Academy of Optometry's Contact Lens Section simultaneously. This year, he received the AOA Distinguished Service award.
His take-away lesson: relationships are critical. "I guess if there was one accomplishment I'm proud of, it was developing a good relationship with literally
thousands of optometrists." He had to—that was the only way to build his unheard-of contact lens specialty practice. He believes the profession is well-positioned for the new century. "I suspect that
people have been going to optometrists for 100 years because they know how to fit glasses or prescribe lenses. Sooner or later, optometrists are going to get back to what they're good at."
Those who are good at contact lenses have Robert A. Koetting, O.D., to thank for showing the way. Robert B. Mandell, Contact Lenses St. Louis optometrist Frank Fontana recalls the first Heart of America Contact Lens Society meeting in 1961.
Dr. Mandell, then an assistant professor at the former Los Angeles College of Optometry (now SCCO) came armed with corneal models, giving many O.D.s their first understanding of the cornea's curvature and its influence
on contact lens design. Says Dr. Fontana: "He was the most understandable speaker we had in those days." Since then Dr. Mandell, who is now professor emeritus at the University of
California-Berkeley School of Optometry after 32 years on faculty, has probably become best known for his book, Contact Lens Practice (1964, Charles C. Thomas
Publisher). Some 35 years and four editions later, it's still a definitive text. "He wrote the contact lens bible per se," says Clarks Summit, Pa., optometrist Joseph P. Shovlin.
Admirers regard Dr. Mandell as a pioneer in the contact lens field. Among their reasons: He developed a method to accurately measure corneal topography. He also introduced many principles for designing and fitting contact lenses.
Dr. Mandell, however, believes his most important contribution was developing the first electronic recording pachometer and, with optometrists Irving Fatt and Kenneth
Polse, using pachometry to determine the oxygen requirements of contact lens wearers. "This is still used as the primary technique for lens evaluation," Dr. Mandell says.
Dr. Mandell has designed several contact lenses, including the first monocentric, one-piece bifocal, and is now at work on new bifocal designs. They may be a
mystery to many. But solving mysteries about contact lenses is nothing new for Robert B. Mandell, O.D., Ph.D
A. M. Skeffington, Binocular Vision
"My first glimpse of Dr. Skeffington was when he stepped up to the lectern, clothed fully in white—white suit, white shoes and white tie," recalled R. Wayne Knight, O.D., in
a 1966 tribute published in Optometric World. The scene was a 1947 lecture at the Northern Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago. "It was obvious immediately that
this man was a little different from the run of the mill. There was an automatic leaning forward in one's chair to hear what he was about to say." He graduated from the Needles Institute of Optometry in Kansas City in 1917, then
went into practice in Kearney, Neb. Some 11 years later, he began a traveling schedule of post-graduate lectures as director of education of the nascent Optometric Extension Program. Over the next four decades Dr. Skeffington
disseminated the notion that visual dysfunction is largely the product of external factors—namely, what he considered the "biologically unacceptable" nearpoint
tasks that are commonplace in a society saturated with the printed word. He proposed that the visual system could adapt to these stresses. Clinicians, however,
must tailor any successful intervention to the patient's particular stage of adaptation. Newton K. Wesley, Contact Lenses Today Dr. Wesley is trying to do for retinal sensitivity
analysis what he did a half century ago for contact lenses: pioneer a new technology. He not only invented the first commercially successful contact lens in the early 1950s; he taught colleagues how to fit it. And, he built
what came to be the Wesley-Jessen Corporation with his former student, George Jessen, O.D. Dr. Wesley left the corporate boardroom in 1980, but still practices in Northbrook, Ill., treating "hopeless"
keratoconus patients. He is also chairman of the National Eye Research Foundation, best known for its orthokeratology work. His new company, Retsan Inc., has developed software to perform retinal sensitivity
analysis. "Analyzing color mapping without computer software is impractical," Dr. Wesley says. This represents another innovation Dr. Wesley must teach to others. He has scheduled one meeting a week through April.
Naysayers don't deter Dr. Wesley. He encountered them 50 years ago when some clinicians would walk out of his lectures because he said contact lenses were clinically safe.
One of Dr. Wesley's mentors was Harry Lee Fording, O.D., president of the North Pacific College of Optometry. Instead of accepting an offer of $100,000 from a
group of O.D.s to buy the college in the early 1940s, Dr. Fording accepted all that Dr. Wesley had—$5,000. "When I asked him why he did that, he said he knew I would do something with the school," recalls Dr. Wesley, a 1939 alumnus.
While Dr. Wesley may be best known for the company that bears his name and his achievements in contact lenses, his first major professional impact was even more
profound: He helped achieve recognition of "O.D." as an accredited, post-doctoral academic degree. Fittingly, he continues to serve as an honorary trustee at what is
today the Pacific College of Optometry at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore. Meanwhile, Newton K. Wesley, O.D., continues to chase new dreams. Karla Zadnik, Women In Optometry "Dr. Karla Zadnik has taken optometry to a level it would
not have achieved without her by developing nationally funded research projects at various universities," says lecturer Valerie Kattouf, O.D., of Chicago.
Dr. Zadnik also mentors optometric students as part of her duties as professor at Ohio State University College of Optometry. She encourages students to consider a
career in academia. "For the profession to thrive," she says, "we really do need it to be based on solid education and advancements in research, both basic and clinical."
She herself was doggedly recruited to pursue graduate school, a decision motivated by one of her mentors, Tony Adams, O.D., Ph.D., dean at University of California-Berkeley School of Optometry. Dr. Zadnik ultimately served as the
president of the school's alumni association, and as a trustee was actively involved in the California Optometric Association. Despite a busy professional life, Dr. Zadnik doesn't let her family come second. She
tries to combine them so that each enriches the other. Her husband, Kurt Zadnik, works down the hall as the managing editor of Optometry and Vision Science, and her children are frequent visitors to her office.
On a national level, Dr. Zadnik has served on the AOA's Research Committee, and is now the Chair of the American Academy of Optometry's Cornea and Contact Lens Section.
If she were to leave any legacy, Dr. Zadnik hopes it would be to give eye doctors the means to intervene earlier when treating myopia and keratoconus.
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How Readers Chose Our Most Influential O.D.s Last
year we asked members of a magazine-appointed panel to brainstorm names of the most influential people in optometry over the past century. From that, we compiled a ballot of names and published it in the August and September issues
of the magazine. We also posted it on Review of Optometry OnLine, our web site. Some 200 readers submitted ballots via fax, mail and e-mail. To prevent ballot-box stuffing, we asked all voters to submit their names and addresses.
This ensured that each person voted only once. We randomly checked information against The Blue Book of Optometry and our own subscription list to verify names. Our panelists provided valuable input into categories. For example,
there was much discussion about the category "Women in Optometry." We kept this because traditional gender bias prevented women from joining the profession in significant numbers until the past quarter century. It's clear that the
presence of women in the profession will only grow into the next century. In only three of the eight categories was there one clear leading vote getter: General Optometry (Irvin Borish, O.D.), Binocular Vision (A.M. Skeffington,
O.D., D.O.S.); and Low Vision (William Feinbloom, O.D.). In all other categories—Women in Optometry, Practice Management, Contact Lenses, Ocular Disease and Education—two individuals received enough votes to be declared "Most
Influential." A thank-you must go to the panelists who provided their input throughout the process: James Sheedy, O.D., of Walnut Creek, Calif.; Rodger Kame, O.D., of Los Angeles; Robert A. Koetting, O.D., of St. Louis; and
Pamela Joyce Miller, O.D., J.D., of Highland, Calif. Members of our Editorial Board also served on our panel: Clinical Editor Robert M. Cole III, O.D., of Bridgeton, N.J.; Consulting Editor Frank Fontana, O.D., of St. Louis;
Associate Clinical Editor Joseph P. Shovlin, O.D., of Scranton, Pa.; and Case Reports Coordinator Thomas L. Lewis, O.D., Ph.D., president of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry. |
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ophthalmology at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, picked up guest lecturer John F. Amos, O.D., at the Tampa
airport to shuttle him to a conference. "What are you doing these days in optometry?" asked Dr. Bartlett. "I'm doing primary eye care," Dr. Amos replied. Puzzled, Dr. Bartlett then said, "What is primary eye care?" 
words "practice management." Irving J. Bennett, O.D., is probably most responsible for establishing that phrase in the optometric vernacular.
students, it stands to reason that women likewise would
assume visible roles as teachers, administrators, authors and leaders of the profession. Linda Casser, O.D., fulfills all these roles, and then some. 
busy providing primary eye care. 
O.D., Ph.D., encountered an elderly, vision-impaired
patient for whom no available treatment was effective. The then-28-year-old Brooklyn native devised a spectacle-mounted 3X telescopic lens which restored the man's functional vision. The patient later reported this
"miracle" on a visit to Pope Pius XI.
he is a battler. Since earning his O.D. degree at
Pennsylvania College of Optometry in 1952, the silver-tongued New York City native has channeled that tenacious spirit into expanding the scope of optometry on multiple fronts. As the long-time director of the
Optometric Center of New York and chief proponent and president of the State University of New York College of Optometry, Dr. Haffner has fought and won numerous battles for optometry. "You get nowhere in this world
without battling for it," says Dr. Haffner, courtly as ever yet still combative at 71. "If you don't fight, you can't move ahead."
seems more the stuff of "Little House on the Prairie" than
a prelude to a distinguished career in optometric education. It was the mid-1930s in Middlefield, Ohio, and the teacher was a young Henry W. Hofstetter (not yet O.D., Ph.D.). 
unheard of: He set up a contact lens specialty practice. Back then, convincing colleagues that contact lenses
could provide clear, crisp vision was only part of the struggle. Someone had to convince them that they could make a living fitting these little pieces of plastic. Enter Bob Koetting.
many optometrists than a part of every day practice. Robert B. Mandell, O.D., Ph.D., solved that mystery for many. The 66-year-old native of Alhambra, Calif., has
made numerous other contributions that are now part of everyday contact lens practice.
approach to visual science that treats vision as a learned
skill which can be improved through proper training. A largely self-schooled scholar with wide-ranging interests, the Kansas City, Mo., native borrowed from psychology, neurology and educational theory to augment previous
methods of diagnosing and treating binocular dysfunction. Just as importantly, the "father" of vision training promoted his concepts with a flair for captivating an audience. 
influence by the example. Newton K. Wesley, O.D., has touched optometry all these ways. At 82, he continues to focus on the future.
career as a kid earning a nickel for each trial lens she
cleaned at her grandfather's optometry practice. She has since broken ground for optometry on a grander scale. She's one of the first O.D.s to secure major funding for multi-center, longitudinal research projects. Currently,
she leads two NEI-funded studies: the Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Keratoconus (CLEK) and Myopia Development in Children.