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When Brian Mahoney, OD ‘85, Resident ‘86, found out that he had won Salus University’s 2024 Albert Fitch Alumnus of the Year Award, he had to take a moment to let it sink in.
After all, he humbly considers what he’s done in his professional career was not done for the purpose of recognition. But he concluded that the Fitch Award demonstrates how much he has touched people’s lives professionally, the depth and impact of which he maybe didn’t fully understand.
Dr. Mahoney, along with six other recipients, was presented with the Fitch Award at the University’s annual recognition reception June 2, 2024, at Pinecrest Country Club in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
After majoring in biology at the State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo, Dr. Mahoney shadowed his optometrist there and decided that was the profession he wanted to enter. He interviewed at a couple of optometry schools, but decided that he had a better feel for the Pennsylvania College of Optometry.
While at PCO, Jeffrey Nyman, OD, FAAO, director of Emergency Services at The Eye Institute (TEI) at Salus, was Dr. Mahoney’s residency coordinator and mentor.
“You don’t forget somebody who believed in you when you were a work in progress. I think Jeff epitomizes that,” said Dr. Mahoney. “He has a mix of intensity and laid-back components to his teaching style. It was so impressive that I adapted much of what my approach in clinic is to what I primarily observed from Jeff. That is something you can’t teach well in terms of methodology. For whatever reason, his style affected me profoundly. I hope I was successful at leaving my residents and students with a similar feeling when reflecting on their experiences while under my clinical mentorship.”
But it was after completing his residency and taking a job at the Veterans Administration in Wilmington, Delaware, where Dr. Mahoney really left his mark. His tenure there lasted 32 years, and during that time he established a student program with PCO in 1988 and then followed that by starting a residency program affiliated with PCO in 1990.
“Being able to integrate an optometric education program in a medical setting that had free access to both primary medical care, specialty medical care, ophthalmology, and surgery, that’s why I think it was a fertile ground for an optometric educational program,” said Dr. Mahoney.
He started the program offering one paid residency slot when he first started to three paid residency slots by the time he retired from full-time work at the VA in 2018.
In addition, he estimates he was involved with educating 75 residents over the years and in the ballpark of 150 students that came through the VA program during his tenure, many of them PCO students.
“And some of the staff that I hired at the VA were some of my former students or residents,” said Dr. Mahoney. “Not from a nepotistic viewpoint but certainly I was fully aware of their level of clinical acumen and achievement and their drive for blending that with a goal for academic participation. It was just was the right combination to create the staff I needed there.”
Nowadays, he works two days a week in clinic. And it so happens that one of his former students, Sarah Foster, OD ‘89, Resident ‘90, is the head of that clinic.
“She’s the one who enticed me to go there after I finished my full-time work at the VA hospital. It’s quite interesting how things do come full circle, that one of my former trainees ended up being my boss,” said Dr. Mahoney.
The days when he’s not in clinic are taken up with various activities, including spending time with two grandchildren that live near him. Dr. Mahoney likes to travel, take day trips, go biking and hiking and he loves love entertainment.
“The best part about it is that most days I don’t have to decide what I’m going to do until I wake up that day,” he said.
