All About the Accelerated OD Scholars Program

Before the first Doctor of Optometry Accelerated Scholars Program cohort began in July 2014, a small pilot group of Traditional Program students were given the opportunity to accelerate their clinical skills and enter The Eye Institute, the University’s main clinical facility, five months earlier than usual. The resulting program emphasizes guided independent learning, lecture and laboratory instruction, small group learning, case-based learning, and web-enhanced instruction.

That was seven years ago and since then, the program has progressed - below is the first of an ongoing series which includes introductions, programmatic information and updates derived from interviews with the deans of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry at Salus on just how it’s going. They include PCO dean Melissa Trego, OD ‘04, Resident ‘09, PhD; associate dean, Curriculum and Assessment, Elizabeth Tonkery, OD, Resident ‘10, MPH ’13; and associate dean, Accelerated Programs, Bhawan Minhas, OD, Resident ‘14.

Trego: My name's Melissa Trego, and I currently am the dean of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) at Salus University. I just wanted to give you a little bit of background about myself. I grew up in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, which is central Pennsylvania. I went to Susquehanna University, where I was a biochemistry major and came down to Philadelphia to PCO to get my Doctor of Optometry degree. I ended up popping across the ocean to get a PhD at Cardiff University in Wales, and then came back and completed my residency in primary care at The Eye Institute.

Tonkery: My name is Beth Tonkery. I am from Michigan originally so I went to the Michigan College of Optometry (MCO). Before that, I did my undergrad in Michigan at Oakland University, where my undergrad major was biology. I came here in 2009 to a residency in primary care, ocular disease and never left. So I've been here for 12 years now.

We wanted talk to you a little bit about how the scholars program works and a little bit about how the calendar works.

Minhas: I'm Bhawan Minhas, I am a Canadian. I went to the University of Calgary for my undergrad education. I majored in biology and then minored in primatology, which is always fun. I went to the Illinois College of Optometry (ICO), came to PCO for my residency, never left, and I'm really excited to take over the Scholars Program in this capacity and work with Dr. Tonkery in the curricular aspect of it.

Q: How did you originally come up with the concept of the Scholars Program?

Tonkery: I think my first focus group for the Scholars Program was in 2010 - I was still a resident. And, they were pulling together a group of people to figure out just how crazy it would be to do this in three years. I think coming from a small program, MCO, I graduated with 35 other students, really kind of gave me a bit of a different perspective compared to a lot of the faculty, like Dr. Trego, that grew up in a class of 150. So that was my first foray into it, and then I never left it. When I became a faculty member, Dr. Trego and I had the good fortune, both as faculty members, of taking the lead and getting the pilot program off the ground. And, then I guess we just had so much fun that we couldn't let it go.

Trego: It was kind of a bit of a crazy concept at first. But what we found is that medicine and law, as well as pharmacy, were doing accelerated programs. And, the question was why shouldn't optometry do an accelerated program? So we wanted to make sure we combined the ability to have an independent type of study, plus small group learning and a connection. We wanted to make sure we were able to immerse the students in a program that was hands on and allowed them to get out a year sooner than the traditional four year program.

Q: Was did everyone think at first?

Tonkery: I think everybody thought we were a little crazy when we were these young, excited faculty members saying, "Why can't we do this in three years?" And, honestly, that kind of became our tagline when everybody would ask us, "Why are you guys doing this? Optometry school is hard. Don't you know it's hard?" And, we were both like, "Yeah, we know it's hard, but why can't optometry do it? What's the reason we couldn't do it?" So we were not concerned at all about accelerating the didactic portion of the program. Frankly, that's easy. You give the student the material, the student can take the test, and they'll do a really good job. What we knew was going to be a little bit more tricky was accelerating the clinical portion of the program, because PCO is well known for having one of the top clinical programs in the country. And, we weren't willing to compromise that. So Dr. Trego and I decided that we would run a pilot. We had four students - 2013? We actually ran the pilot twice, once with myself and Dr. Trego and once with Dr. Neiman, who I think you'll also hear from, as the head of the clinical skills lab. We had an amazing time with it. So we realized, "I think we're onto something here. I think we can do this."

Trego: It ended up being a really great project. We are now accepting, I believe, students for the eighth cohort perhaps. The first cohort in fact graduated with 100% board pass rates in 2017. It's been a fantastic program. The students are able to create a really strong network, and they also are fantastic clinicians. So it ended up being a really good concept.

Q: What were your goals for the program?

Tonkery: Our goals of the program were to create a product that could stand shoulder to shoulder with our traditional product, get it done in three years, and be every bit as good. I think we've done that, and I think we've proven that. Our outcomes in this program have been really great, both from a clinical standpoint, as well as a didactic standpoint. And, we thought this was going to be something that was going to be fun and kind of, not the main part of PCO, but it really has driven a lot of innovation and a lot of change within PCO over the last decade or so, because we've learned a lot from the Scholars Program that we've been able to take to the traditional program. All good things.

Q: Why a three year program?

Trego: Why not, essentially. And, don't forget you get a four year education in three years, you get a year of savings on tuition, a year on savings with living expenses, and it is a potential year for either making money to start your career or to be able to do a residency. And, so without a doubt, it's been one of the most proudest projects I would say we've probably worked on.

Curriculum and Assessment

Q: What makes the curriculum and schedule unique?

Minhas: So in terms of the program curriculum, the biggest difference between the Scholars Program and the Traditional Program is that the Scholars Program is on a quarter system, which is very similar to what my background at ICO is with. So I was on a quarter system when I was a student at ICO, and I'm pretty familiar with the model of being 10 weeks on, the 11th week being finals, and then having a 12th week off. That inception helps not only accelerate the program, but I think gives it a good pacing, to be honest.

Tonkery: The traditional program runs on a 16 or 17 week semester so we have two semesters and then we have a summer term that's about 14 weeks and the students constantly are running in the semester calendar. And, I think when we built the calendar and the program for Scholars, we knew we couldn't cut anything out. The accrediting body said, "Sure, go ahead, do what you want, but you have to have the same number of credits." So we got a little creative and decided we would run the Scholars Program on a quarter calendar, which like Dr. Minhas said runs a little faster. It's about 10 weeks of instruction, one week of finals. And, then you get a week to disappear. We have students who go on cruises…

Minhas: Get married...

Tonkery: Backpack through everywhere…

Minhas: Europe...

Tonkery: Yes, so anything they want to do…

Minhas: Appalachian mountains...

Tonkery: They might get a couple of emails from us, but nothing that they really have to respond to. And, it's a really great break to just disconnect and then they come back fresh and recharged. We usually start back on Monday morning. Not until noon, just so people have an extra couple hours. And, it's hit the ground running.

Minhas: Instead of like Dr. Tonkery said, where it's constantly running in a semester system, which I felt in my undergrad, I feel like it's sprinting, and then taking a break, and then sprinting again, and then taking a break. So it paces the program in a way that we're able to almost have a better work-life balance in general.

Tonkery: We get a lot of questions about, okay, this is a year-round program. "Do I get time off at the holidays?" "Do I get breaks?" "Can I go to conferences?" And, the answer is yes, we've built those in as well. In December and January, there's about three or four weeks off. Over the spring break holiday, there's a couple of long weekends. And, then conferences and different things like that students want to attend, we're able to work around those schedules.

So it's not so intense that you never get a break and you never get to step away because you do, you wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. And, we recognize that giving you breaks actually helps you come back and start strong. So in some ways I think Dr. Minhas and I have discussed the Scholars Program is a little easier from a timing standpoint, because as long as you're kind of willing to dial it in and turn it on for those 10 weeks, you literally get to disappear. And, then you still get your holiday days off, and all of the other break time off, and then even the half days or the days here and there during the week that we can give is a mental break to recharge. So in a lot of ways I would argue Scholars is somewhat easier - you just need to know coming and what you can expect.

Q: What are some of the unique courses integrated in the Scholars Program that are different from the Traditional Program?

Minhas: The Scholars Grand Rounds course is near and dear to my heart. It is something that is very special to the Scholars Program that we aren't really able to do in the Traditional Program due to the size limitation. Scholars Grand Rounds is similar to medical grand rounds that you might be familiar with in medical school, where students pick a case they saw in clinic, research it, create a presentation about it, present it to their colleagues, which includes the class that they're in, but also their underclassmen, and then kind of answer questions from the audience.

It really builds up their presentation skills, which is really exciting to watch, as they do the course. They do it for two years. So their first year they are involved in being in the audience and watching their upperclassmen present, and in their second year, they're actually giving presentations. So throughout their two years in the Scholars Grand Rounds course, they actually present 10 times, which is 10 times more than most students who graduate from optometry school. Scholars students are really well versed than most other graduates of an optometry school, or at least are way more comfortable with it than most students are.

And, then the other course that I'm involved in with them, which is also run in the Traditional Program, is the Diagnostic Imaging and Technology course. This course is really exciting. I'm a huge nerd. I love technology. Any new machines that come out, I'm so excited about them. So I really love to incorporate that into a curriculum for the students. So this course is something where the students first learn what the machines are, what they're used to test, how to interpret normal, how to interpret abnormal, and then utilize that when they're doing their disease courses in the rest of their curriculum, and that happens in the Scholars Program at the very beginning of their second year. Regardless of which program you come to, I always say that you're going to get sick of me, but I'm pretty already involved in the Scholars Program from the very beginning and now get to oversee them in a different capacity based on my role.