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When Joel Silbert, OD ‘73, FAAO, joined the faculty at The Eye Institute (TEI) and the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) in 1974, optometrists couldn’t do very much as a profession.
“It was so alien to what we teach optometrists to do today. Optometry was primarily a refracting profession then,” said Dr. Silbert. “We prescribed glasses and contact lenses, but we weren’t treating ocular disease as much as we wanted to. We were not even able at the time to use diagnostic agents to dilate pupils. Can you imagine?”
But by the mid-to late-1970s, things began to change. There was a planned effort across the United States where teams of clinicians in various state associations began to train optometrists how to use diagnostic pharmaceutical agents and how to conduct corresponding optometric examination techniques.
“Because up until then, most people were using direct ophthalmoscopes, they weren’t even able to get a good view of the back of the eye as we can today with our indirect ophthalmoscopes and other instrumentation,” said Dr. Silbert.
The profession continued to advance in the 1980s, primarily because states were beginning to pass legislation that allowed optometrists to use therapeutic agents.
Dr. Silbert called the decades of the 1970s and 1980s “remarkable in terms of the excitement involved with doing the training of other optometrists throughout the nation.” “It was a breakthrough thing,” he said. “Treating ocular disease, and also the various and sundry examination techniques that were associated with that, so that each state association ultimately were trained enough to get their membership able to exert whatever political pressure they needed to prove that optometrists were more than capable of utilizing these procedures.”
After being in on the ground floor of advancing the profession of optometry over the past 46 years at Salus PCO, Dr. Silbert — professor and director of the Contact Lens Program and former chief of the Cornea and Specialty Contact Lens Service at TEI — has decided to call it a career. He officially retired June 30, 2020.
“I didn’t quite make 50 years, but I figured enough was enough and that I should bow out while I’m still functioning, and not when they tell you that you have to go,” he said.
Dr. Silbert joined TEI the year after graduating from PCO — and also opened his own private practice, Woodbury Eye Associates, N.J. — at a time when practicing optometry, especially in Pennsylvania, was extremely limiting.
“The reason I opened my office in New Jersey was because that state had a diagnostic drug bill that enabled us to at least use a few rudimentary diagnostic agents, where Pennsylvania did not,” he said. “So even though I was practicing here at the College, I wanted my private office to be across the river in New Jersey where I had the ability to use at least the diagnostic agents that were available to us at the time.”
Optometrists at PCO at the time were very well aware they were sacrificing many hours and weekends away from home training optometrists in other state associations, helping them to develop the political clout to make real changes in the profession state-by-state.
“We were very aware of what we were doing, and we felt very good about contributing. But you didn’t really know what the outcome was going to be until it actually happened. Fortunately we would see one state, and then another and another pass legislation, and that spurred us on to do more of that,” said Dr. Silbert. “It was a very heady time, really. It was an exciting time. And the clinicians at TEI became very close with each other because of the camaraderie, not just from working at TEI but also in our trips as we would spend weekend after weekend with each other training other eye doctors.”
Born and raised is Philadelphia, Dr. Silbert never had any intention of straying too far from home in his career, at least no further than having his private practice across the bridge in New Jersey.
He would eventually become a nationally recognized expert in contact lenses, a career path he traces directly to Lester Janoff, OD ‘53, MEd, FAAO, who joined the PCO faculty in 1965.
Dr. Janoff was given the responsibility when TEI opened in 1978 of leading the very first primary care module — Module 1. He, Dr. Silbert, Robert Walker, OD ‘70, and Bernard Blaustein, OD ‘67, FAAO, were the faculty that made up Module 1.
And, Dr. Janoff made a lasting impression on the young Dr. Silbert.
“He taught me basic optometry and I developed a close working relationship with him,” said Dr. Silbert. “He just exemplified the kind of practitioner that I wanted to be. His mentorship gave me the love for contact lenses.”
When Dr. Janoff left the position as chief of Module 1 to take another position, it was Dr. Silbert who replaced him and stayed in that position in primary care for 10 years.
In 2002, Dr. Janoff was awarded Professor Emeritus recognition, and continued lecturing and participating in the contact lens clinics until his death in 2006.
“I have great love for that man and he’s always served as my role model,” said Dr. Silbert. “He was almost a father figure to me. My father died at a very early age, so it was a very fine mentorship with Dr. Janoff. I miss him a lot.”
Among the many things Dr. Silbert is going to miss after retirement is his colleagues at PCO and TEI, as well as the young optometrists that he’s been able to help train year after year.
“We have such an amazing cadre of young men and women. It’s so much fun to be able to teach them and share what I have learned over years with them,” he said. “And, I’ve developed very close working relationships with my colleagues over 46 years and they are an incredible faculty and an incredible group of clinicians. I’m so proud of them and I tremendously respect their abilities.”
Dr. Silbert also cited the primary care and contact lens residents that he has helped train as an integral part of his career.
“The folks who I have trained and gone on to become contact lens experts and educators around the country, that is one of the most rewarding things to have seen,” he said.
“Dr Silbert has been a mentor to me since I was a resident in 2009,” said Michelle Britchkow, OD ‘09, Resident ‘10, assistant professor at PCO. “He has been a tremendous influence to the advancement of contact lenses materials, designs, and fitting techniques, and I have much respect and admiration for his contributions to the field. I have learned so much working side-by-side with him in lectures, labs, and clinic. Seeing him with patients, I can say that he is a wise and empathetic doctor, and a truly good soul.”
Dr. Silbert leaves with a long list of accomplishments. In addition to his duties at TEI, he has been the principal investigator at PCO for the CLEK Study (Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Keratoconus) for 10 years; has authored two textbooks on anterior segment complications of contact lenses; wrote 12 chapters in 11 textbooks on contact lenses and anterior segment ocular disease; was the chair of the AOCLE (Association of Optometric CL Educators); a diplomate of the Cornea, Refractive Technology and Contact Lens Section of the American Academy of Optometry; a senior lecturer in contact lenses courses at PCO; externship preceptor for 25 years; contact lens and primary care residency supervisor and mentor from 1978 to the present; and chair of the credentialing committee at TEI.
“Dr. Silbert was one of my clinical instructors when I was at The Eye Institute. He always impressed upon all us of the importance of being thorough so we didn’t miss anything when examining our patients,” said Salus president Michael Mittelman, OD ‘80, MPH, MBA, FAAO, FACHE. “Always very approachable and knowledgeable, he made me a much better clinician as I’m certain many of my peers would tell you as well.”
Dr. Silbert was named a PCO Presidential Medal of Honor recipient in 2019 and twice received the Scientific Achievement Award from the New Jersey Optometric Association.
Although he has officially retired, Dr. Silbert isn’t just going to stop doing what he’s been doing for the past 46 years. He’s going to continue working in Advanced Studies in Contact Lenses externally with fourth-year students and will likely continue teaching in a limited degree.
In those times away from academia, Dr. Silbert said he and his wife Carol plan to enjoy time down the shore at their place in Margate, N.J., do some traveling and enjoy their six grandchildren, who range in ages from five to 15 years old.
“I cannot imagine having chosen a better profession,” said Dr. Silbert. “I fell in love with optometry the first year I came here. I have no regrets. It’s been a tremendous career.”
