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Saturday Spotlight: Presidential Medals Awardees
It takes a special community to ensure that the institution continues to be a leader in health science education.
In 1995, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Salus University’s founding college, the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO), seventy-six people of note were awarded the President’s Medal of Honor. On Friday, April 26, 2019, thirty-five additional notable individuals will be awarded Presidential Medals to commemorate the 100th anniversary of PCO and the 10th anniversary of Salus.
Every Saturday leading up to Friday April 26, we will highlight a few of the new awardees.
Sheree Aston, OD ’82, MA, PhD
Dr. Sheree Aston has been vice provost and professor of Optometry at Western University since 2007. She planned, launched, and continues to oversee Western University’s three-phase Interprofessional Education Program (IPE). Dr. Aston is currently a trustee of the American Interprofessional Health Collaborative (AIHC) and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Interprofessional Healthcare. She served on the Executive Committee for Collaborating Across Borders (CAB) IV and is the current United States chair of CABV conference. She is the director of the Geriatric IPE project and is a member of the Executive Committee of the California Geriatric Education Center (CGEC), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Early in her career, she helped form and served on the steering committee of the University of Pennsylvania’s Delaware Valley Geriatric Education Center. Dr. Aston was the lead author of a collaborative article on IPE programs that appeared in the July 2012 issue of Academic Medicine. She has authored and co-authored more than a dozen scholarly articles in refereed health, aging and rehabilitation journals; authored an interdisciplinary-based clinical geriatric text; served as the director of several public-funded training grants; and lectured nationally and internationally on IPE, geriatrics and health education in a variety of health and rehabilitation venues.
Roger Cummings, OD ’76, FAAO
Dr. Roger Cummings, who was a PCO faculty member for 22 years, left the College to provide services to the VA in North Carolina. He was also a co-investigator on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded grant on eye movement monitoring in the partially sighted with Dr. Steve Whitaker. Dr. Cummings is a Diplomate in Low Vision and served as chair of the Low Vision section of the American Academy of Optometry from 2009 to 2010. He is the founding president of the North Carolina Chapter of the Academy. In collaboration with Salus, Dr. Cummings created a “First to Fellowship Award” to encourage Hefner VAMC optometry residents to become Academy Fellows.
Edward Deglin, MD, FAAO
Dr. Edward Deglin is an ophthalmologist with a specialty in retinal and vitreous diseases and surgery. Dr. Deglin completed his residency at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He went on to do a NIH Special Fellowship and earn his Master of Science degree in Ophthalmology with a thesis in Retinal Hemodynamics in Diabetes Mellitus at Georgetown University Medical Center, and a Retina Fellowship at Wills Eye Hospital. He has been in private practice in Philadelphia and its suburbs for over 30 years. Dr. Deglin currently holds a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in addition to PCO, where he has been a professor since 1980. He additionally sees patients and precepts students once a week at TEI. The Consumer Research Council has recognized Dr. Deglin, a board-certified member by the American Board of Ophthalmology and a Fellow of the AAO, as one of “America’s Top Ophthalmologists.”
