Schwartz, Austin Receive 2016-2017 Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher announced the names of 361 faculty and staff from throughout the university system as recipients of the 2016-17 Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence, including SUNY College of Optometry’s Dr. Steven Schwartz and Ms. Gaea Austin. The Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence are presented annually to faculty and staff in seven categories: Faculty Service, Librarianship, Professional Service, Scholarship and Creative Activities, Teaching, Adjunct in Teaching and Classified Service. The honor provides system-wide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement. Dr. Schwartz, who received the honor for teaching, is a professor in the College’s Department of Biological and Vision Sciences and director of institutional research and planning. He previously served as vice president and dean for academic affairs. He teaches integrated optics, visual function, ocular disease, contact lenses and personal financial planning for new optometrists. Ms. Austin, who received the honor for professional service, serves as both the College’s environmental health and safety officer and assistant internal control officer. She develops, implements and oversees environmental, health and safety programs that will positively impact working and learning conditions at the College and ensures compliance with all regulatory mandates. 34 Meet Dr. Delaram Shirazian New SUNY Optometry assistant clinical professor Dr. Delaram Shirazian did not intend to become an optometrist. As a college student at University of Missouri in Columbia, She was planning on life as a physician—until junior year when she shadowed an optometrist and shifted her focus. She also took a detour during her time in optometry school on Mizzou’s St. Louis campus; she spent a month in Ghana as a volunteer with Unite for Sight to provide eye care for people in remote villages who sometimes traveled hours to reach the clinic. “The biggest lesson I learned in Ghana was that all individuals, regardless of their income or social status, deserve compassionate, quality eye care,” she says. Dr. Shirazian also experienced firsthand how critical patient-doctor communication is to the medical encounter. This realization about the necessity of communication has shaped everything about how the expert in low vision rehabilitation and ocular disease doctors and teaches. It may be a surprise for her students—this semester she is working with third-year students in the adult primary care clinic and teaching a first- and second-year clinical optometry lab—but the greatest lessons she will impart will be about humanity. “We spend countless hours in the classroom on didactic education and countless hours sharpening our clinical skills in order to be great doctors for our patients, but we often neglect one of the most vital tools in caring for patients: our ability to create trusting, lasting relationships with them,” she says. “I am working on developing lectures that focus on how we communicate with our patients and the impact that has on patient satisfaction, our career satisfaction and improving clinical outcomes.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODE1MDI0