A 'Hail Mary' Decides Optometry's Quiz Bowl

Going into the 2024 Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) at Salus University’s Quiz Bowl, Anna German ‘26OD knew she would be at a disadvantage. As a first-year student in the Doctor of Optometry Accelerated Scholars' program, there were classes she hadn’t yet taken with information she hadn’t yet learned that would have greatly helped her in the  annual trivia contest.

So, she had to rely on her instincts and essentially throw up a Hail Mary on the final question. And, thankfully, it worked. Much to her surprise and delight, she won the recent PCO/Salus contest and will now advance to the national quiz bowl competition at Optometry’s Meeting in 2025 and compete against students from across the country. 

“When I first saw the email about the PCO Quiz Bowl, I was really excited and thought, ‘Maybe I’ll give it a shot,’” said German, who participated in quiz bowl competitions in both high school and undergraduate school at the University of Mississippi where she earned a degree in biochemistry. “But because of the number of classes I haven’t yet had — like disease or pathology courses, and minimal contact lens courses — I knew when those questions came up, it was going to be difficult for me.”

The quiz bowl is a Jeopardy-style competition where judges ask a series of 15 optometry questions each over three rounds. Then there is a final Jeopardy-type question to determine the champion. It mimics the style for the national competition. 

In addition to German — who describes herself as an “optometry nerd” — this year’s competition also included Abigail Semler ‘26OD, Lawrence Sunga Yabut ‘26OD and Rhiannon Kenniston ‘26OD. Hosts for the festivities included PCO/Salus instructor Elizabeth Marunde, OD, and the judges included assistant professor Laine Higa, OD, Resident ‘15, and Bhawan Minhas, OD, Resident ‘14, FAAO, associate dean of the Accelerated program, as well as two Pennsylvania Optometric Association (POA) doctors and PCO grads, Robert Rosenthal, OD ‘83, and Kevin McClure, OD ‘19. The event was planned by members of the American Optometric Student Association (AOSA) and the Pennsylvania Optometric Student Association (POSA) and sponsored by the American Optometric Association (AOA), Pennsylvania Optometric Association (POA), Volk Optical, Inc. and EssilorLuxottica eyewear corporation. 

German’s strategy competing was to be confident in the things she already knew and to buzz in quickly. When it came down to the final question, Yabut led with 17 points. German, who had 12 points, had trailed the entire game. 

The final question was “What is the most common intra-ocular tumor in adults?” German had no idea. But she had decided to wager all 12 of her points anyway.

“I haven’t had any disease courses yet so I haven’t had any exposure to cancers of the eye,” said German. “Choroidal melanoma was the only type of tumor that I’d heard of and that was only because we’d talked about it during an ultrasound lecture recently. So, I went with that and it was the right answer. I’ll be honest, it was a guess. It felt a lot like a Hail Mary.”

German now advances to the 2025 AOSA Optometry Student Bowl, which was created by Essilor’s Danne Ventura and Dr. Rod Tahran in Minneapolis. She has a little more than a year to prepare and will attend this year’s event to get a feel for the competition.

“I’ll get those courses under my belt that I haven’t had a chance to take yet and I will have just taken Part 1 of boards right before that competition,” said German. “I’m hoping to be really prepared and I’m excited to be competing at the national level.”