100 Stories: Arnold Bierman, OD ‘68

Why did you chose your particular profession?

I quite frankly had no idea what I wanted to do growing up. It was suggested that I look into optometry, and everything about it appealed to me.

Tell me about your time at Salus/PCO. Why did you choose to study there?

I grew up in New York City, and at the time, the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) was the closest optometric college. PCO was a close, intimate college, with only 330 students comprising the student population (at the time). The main building was small, within walking distance from where I was living.

What are some of your favorite memories from Salus/PCO – favorite classes, professors, classmates, clinical experiences, co-workers?

• Playing ping-pong in the student lounge.
• Studying with a group of students for final exams.
• Bowling with my classmates against a group of faculty members.
• Putting together the class yearbook (I was the editor), and placing second in a nationwide contest.
• Attending Don Goldstein’s math classes, only to be lectured often on the downfalls of marriage.
• Being scared to death of Dr. Gus Rybachok (“draw and fully label,” or wondering if he would hit us with a pop quiz).
• Seeing patients in the Spring Garden Street clinic, and finding what their cemented bifocals had rotated 90 degrees on their “FGs.”
• Eating lunch at Pinkus’ and loving those pickles.

Tell me about your life after Salus/PCO – where do/did you practice, how long?

Upon graduation, I opened my practice in Lansdale, PA. I am now in my 51st year, and specialize in remediating reading problems, attention deficits, and binocular dysfunction in patients of all ages. I have examined patients as young as two months of age. Also upon graduation, I was offered a teaching position at PCO, and taught, first as a clinical instructor, and then as an assistant professor of clinical optometry from 1968-1979. I sorely miss teaching.

As Salus/PCO celebrates 100 years in 2019, what are your hopes for the college in the next 100 years?

I would like to see a move toward the teaching of behavioral optometry, as well as the medical model presently being taught. So many lives could be changed if we, as a profession, would consider the remediation of visual stress in our patients.