I have always been Penn Proud. I was fortunate that I attended medical school here, and I loved it. Rotating at the Scheie Eye Institute as a student in the late 1990s was pivotal in directing me into what I truly believe is the best field in medicine. At that time, Dr. Stuart Fine was leading an amazing group of renowned faculty who excelled in research, education, and clinical care, and I was inspired. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would be back at Penn 24 years after graduating, and with the opportunity to succeed a long line of luminaries to help lead our department into the future.
Last year’s issue of our annual report was a celebration of both the prior 150 years of our department and of the last 50 years of the Scheie Eye Institute, and these landmark events were expertly and caringly curated by our immediate past chair, Dr. Joan O’Brien, and her team. None of our accomplishments going forward would be possible without the tremendous efforts of those who came before us, so I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the current and past faculty and staff of the Department for setting us up for success going into the next 150 years!
These last two years have been extremely exciting. We truly have undergone a 360-degree expansion with explosive growth and innovations in our research, clinical, and educational arenas. On the research front, we have developed our SMART—Scheie Mechanisms of Aging and Rejuvenation Therapy—initiative to guide our research efforts at the F.M. Kirby Center, which celebrated its 30th year since its founding in 1994. We have recruited two outstanding basic and translational scientists to join us, adding expertise in transcriptomics and gene editing. In addition, our current scientist and clinician-scientist faculty have continued their successful research programs, securing extensive extramural funding which has contributed to our significant increase in NIH funding this year. We were also fortunate to receive a five-year renewal of our unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness. Furthermore, we also filled all four of our available K12 scholar slots as we continue our commitment to foster young investigators to start and succeed in research careers.
On the clinical side, our growth in the last two years has been tremendous. To date, we have brought 14 faculty into our family—seven of these new faculty will be starting next year—and we added three satellite offices, with a fourth one coming soon.
Our patient volumes in the clinic have continued to increase year over year, and we are now far above pre-pandemic levels. Our surgical volume has increased by over 50%. We have also secured a commitment in partnership with Penn Medicine to renovate part of our Scheie building to create more clinical space. And we have initiated an aggressive quality and patient safety campaign with the goal of being a national leader in providing the highest quality of patient-centric care.
Our educational programs have also continued to thrive. Our undergraduate medical education program remains outstanding with all 16 students over the last two years matching into top-tier residency programs across the country. Four of our current faculty have appointments in the Dean’s office, which is quite remarkable for a field that is often marginalized at some medical schools. Our residency program continues to attract and match with the brightest, most talented, and diverse students from around the country. This year, we created a research track for our residency called iPOWER, innovative Program in Ophthalmology With Exceptional Research, and we matched for our first resident to start this summer. To go along with our established fellowship programs, we also started a cornea fellowship, with our first fellow also starting this summer. Finally, the past year culminated with the opening of the Measey Surgical Innovations Core at Scheie—MSICS. This state-of-the-art surgical simulation facility is equipped with 11 microscope stations. It is designed for the very best wet lab training, which will greatly enhance our surgical education program and, importantly, result in even better patient outcomes.
With all of these initiatives and innovations, I hope you can see that our department has truly undergone a 360-degree expansion, and I hope that this brief overview has piqued your interest to read more about each of these in this annual report. Please keep in mind that none of this would have been possible without the accomplishments of the past, the hard work and dedication of our current faculty and staff, and the support of Penn Medicine; it is truly a team effort, and I am deeply honored to be a part of this team.
As I noted in the beginning, I have always been Penn Proud—but now, I am and will always be Scheie Proud as well! I hope you enjoy this issue, and I look forward to seeing and hearing from you.
With best regards,
Bennie H. Jeng, MD, MS
Harold G. Scheie Chair and Professor
Director, Scheie Eye Institute
bennie.jeng@pennmedicine.upenn.edu