BMC: Surely your engineering background played a role in your contributions to the design and development of Alcon’s Accurus and Constellation Vision Systems. I’ve done a lot of speaking-more than 2,000 speaking trips in 50 countries-and I learned my style of speaking from him. From him I learned how to be a good lecturer. My dad was an art historian, a painter, a sculptor, and an art history professor. He’s the kind of guy who could never have yelled at a nurse or a scrub tech in the OR or walked around acting like a big-shot doctor. What I learned from him, both on the podium and in person, was his incredible focus on what’s best for the patient on being dignified, polite, and pleasant to everybody and how to be a true gentleman. I was his favorite of the nieces and nephews because I chose medicine. If you were the President of the United States and you had colon cancer, you’d go see my uncle. He was president of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. Charles, MD, who was my dad’s oldest brother, was a world-class cancer surgeon. As a little kid, I wanted to be an engineer who designed things, just like him. He didn’t build technology to kill people, he built technology to save people. My maternal grandfather, Harry Johnson, was a hard-working mechanical engineer who received an award in World War II for designing the diesel generator sets that were used at Iwo Jima and Normandy Beach for field hospitals, field kitchens, and the like. How cool is that? BMC: Who were your role models growing up?Ĭharles: A mechanical engineer, a surgeon, and a college professor were the three most important people in my life. Norton, what can I ever do to repay you for all you have done for me and for the others who trained here, and of course for the patients?” He tapped me on the shoulder with this sort of almost push, and he said, “Teach.” Then he turned and walked away. The last day I was there, after 8 years-this is a wonderful story-I was walking out the door with my stuff and Dr. In those days, there were no selfies, no group board pictures, no ceremonies, you just did your training and you left. So here’s a guy, a past president of the Retina Society, a past president of the AAO, and founder of the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, who mentored me without ever being formal about it, but just being encouraging. Early in my sophomore year, he accepted me into residency without my even applying. Norton, MD, took me under his wing and gave me an indirect ophthalmoscope. When I was a freshman medical student, Edward W.D. Performing a high volume of complex surgeries teaches me what problems need to be solved. So I went to medical school to find ways to apply my engineering skills and my knowledge to help lessen human suffering. I got the idea to go to medical school from simply looking at a catalog for the University of Oklahoma. I studied mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and more recently, photonics and opt Companies like GE Medical Systems, Medtronic, and Alcon don’t hire biomedical engineers to do design they hire mechanical engineers and electrical engineers. I chose not to be a biomedical engineer because biomedical engineers are not designers they work in the laboratory to support things like how bones break or how knee joints wear out, but they’re not design guys. I’ve never stepped back from engineering. I pursued engineering all through medical school, internship, residency, fellowship, and throughout my career. Steve Charles, MD, FACS, FICS: I knew I wanted to be an engineer, and I never wavered from that. Live Surgery Highlights LENSAR’s Precision and EfficiencyīMC: You attended medical school after attending engineering school. Optimizing Cataract Outcomes With Collaborative Care Link, PhD, and David AlpernĮnsuring Ocular Surface Health Before Laser Vision Correction Nominated by Retina Today | Steve Charles, MD, FACS, FICS, and Mark S. Nominated by CollaborativeEYE | Sondra Black, OD, and Vance Thompson, MD, FACS Nominated by CRSTE | Damien Gatinel, MD, PhD, and Boris Malyugin, MD, PhD Cyber Security for the Ophthalmic Practice
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