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While teaching at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry in Davie, Florida, Erin Jenewein, OD, MS, was looking for a change.
She was searching for a new faculty position in pediatric optometry when she found out that the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) at Salus University had an opening, she jumped at the chance.
“Some of the biggest names in pediatric optometry and pediatric research work are at PCO,” said Dr. Jenewein. “I talked to Dr. (Mitchell) Scheiman,‘16, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, Dr. Scheiman knows who I am.’ He’s such a big wig. So when he talked to me, it was a done deal. Of course I had to interview, but I knew if they offered me a position, I was going to do anything I could to take it because it was such a great opportunity.”
Dr. Jenewein arrived at PCO/Salus in 2015. She is an assistant professor, clinical educator and the coordinator for the Pediatric and Vision Therapy residency. She also serves as principal investigator for the CHAMP Study, a myopia control study; and principal investigator for the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group (PEDIG).
She has been heavily involved in clinical research while at PCO/Salus and would someday like to be in charge of bigger, randomized clinical trials.
“We’re doing a smaller trial right now on vision therapy for intermittent exotropia (a condition in which there are times when one eye has drifted outwards and other times when the eyes are straight),” she said. “Me, and some of my colleagues at other schools, our goal is to eventually do a larger study looking at different treatments for binocular vision conditions, such as intermittent exotropia, in children.”
Her time at PCO/Salus has helped her grow as a researcher as well as advance her career.
“It’s a smaller institution and we have a really strong sense of community because of that,” said Dr. Jenewein. “I think we get a lot of support from our administration and that’s been wonderful.”
Teaching during the pandemic has been both good and bad, she said. One challenge for Dr. Jenewein has been to adapt to lecturing without an audience.
“I really love to interact with my students and that has become a challenge because we’re not face-to-face,” she said. “But the positive is I think it forces us to look back at our material and make it even better. And, we have to break students into smaller groups, which gives us an opportunity to review their work more closely and work with students more closely. They may have the opportunity for a little more one-on-one time because when we are busy in a laboratory or a classroom where there are large groups of students it’s a bit harder to give each student individual time and we are bit more rushed for time.”
While living in Florida for 10 years, Dr. Jenewein and her husband, Darryl Horn, PhD, director of the Post-baccalaureate in Health Sciences program at Salus, were surrounded by the dog-racing scene. One day while shopping, they encountered a greyhound rescue organization and immediately fell in love with the dogs and decided to adopt one of their own. Since 2010, they have adopted eight greyhounds.
Dr. Jenewein pointed out that there are a lot of greyhounds available now across the country, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the need to place the dogs in homes.
“We became really close to our rescue group in Florida and we used to volunteer for them quite a lot,” she said. “When we moved to Pennsylvania, we joined up with another group up here and we’ve started not only adopting, but we also foster dogs.”
In addition to four greyhounds of their own, the couple can foster one to two dogs anywhere from a few days to a few months before homes can be found for them.
Dr. Jenewein also likes to garden, does some baking and cake decorating, and participates in (pre-COVID-19) fun runs — half marathons, 5K and 10K races.
She said coming to PCO/Salus has been a wonderful experience.
“They really have helped me grow in ways that I couldn’t even imagine when I started here,” said Dr. Jenewein. “I feel like my career has kind of exploded since coming to Salus. I have so many opportunities and so much support here that it’s really great.”
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