Introduction by Mike Hawes | |
This third edition of the SASOPRS newsletter highlights multi-generational oculoplastic surgeon families, of which there have been many in the last 55 years. A question often asked of doctors is whether they would want their children to enter the field of medicine. While the answer may be different in 2024 than it was half a century ago, clearly, there were a significant number of “Yes” answers among ASOPRS members. We are fortunate to have a poignant editorial by Jemshed Khan. I am delighted to include an interview with our OPRS journal editor of the last 15 years, Jonathan Dutton, whom John Woog interviewed. An added bonus is commentary by Stu Seiff on his windmill slaying efforts in medical advocacy. |
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Photo: Alston Callahan, MD | |
My father, Alston Callahan, was raised by my grandmother Effie, essentially as a single parent, as my grandfather passed away in an accident at an early age. She was a very stern and strict woman who lived in a small apartment in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and pushed Dad academically so that he finished high school, Mississippi College, Tulane Medical School, and residency training younger than most students.
One of his favorite professors at Tulane was Dr. Mims Gage, who endeared himself to students by teasing them about their errors in presentations and sometimes
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giving them nicknames. My Dad’s nickname became "Mr. Edema" after misdiagnosing an osteogenic sarcoma of the leg. This was not a form of belittling but rather a way of prodding students to do their best. This professor-student relationship came back to assist Dad years later.
At the age of 26, my dad’s first job was joining his half-brother Edley Jones, MD, in an EENT practice in Vicksburg, Mississippi. However, he soon began yearning for a bigger challenge and moved to the big city of Jackson,
| Photo sketch: Michael Callahan and Alston Callahan | Mississippi. This was 1937, and my dad was a single man living in a YMCA apartment while practicing ophthalmology, which mainly consisted of performing refractions with loose lenses. In 1938, he became the first ophthalmologist in the state of Mississippi to become certified by | |
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the American Board of Ophthalmology.
In 1941, Dad married my mother, and by this time, war was raging across Europe. Even though the United States was officially neutral following Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and World War II began.
| Dad enlisted in the U.S. Air Force but soon learned that the United States Army was to implement specialty care hospitals across the country to handle the head and neck casualties from the War. He knew he wanted to join this medical network... | Photo: Michael Callahan, MD | |
Meet the Schaefers
Three Generations of ASOPRS Members
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by Dan and Jamie Lea Schaefer | Featuring Drs. Arthur, Daniel, and Jamie Lea Schaefer were inducted into ASOPRS in 1973, 1989, and 2020, respectively, and two Past Presidents of ASOPRS, Arthur in 1988 and Daniel in 2019. | |
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ARTHUR J. SCHAEFER
First Generation
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In postwar Korea, he served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps and as Chief of Ophthalmology at the 121st Evac Hospital, where he worked with and taught the Korean army’s chief eye surgeon, among others. He was then transferred to Japan, where he was appointed Chief of Ophthalmology at the 8169th Hospital in Zama, Far Eastern Army Headquarters, where he also taught the Japanese Ophthalmic Surgeons.
Art established Buffalo’s first Oculoplastic Surgery Clinic in the early 1960s.
He was a clinical professor of ophthalmology and a clinical assistant professor of otolaryngology at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He was also a consultant at several hospitals in the area and served as director of ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery at ECMC and the Buffalo General Hospital...KEEP READING
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DANIEL P. SCHAEFER
Second Generation
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Dr. Daniel P. Schaefer is a native of Buffalo, New York. He graduated from Canisius College with a B.A. in Biology and received his Doctor of Medicine degree from SUNY at Buffalo in 1981. After serving his internship in Internal Medicine at the University Program, SUNY at Buffalo Affiliated Hospitals in 1982, he completed his residency training in ophthalmology at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1985. He was elected and served as Chief Resident from 1984 to 1985. An American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ASOPRS) sponsored a fellowship training program in Oculoplastic, Orbital, and Reconstructive Surgery, which was completed at the Wills Eye Hospital and Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA. 1985 to 1986 under the preceptorship of Dr. Joseph C. Flanagan.
Dr. Schaefer joined the Department of Ophthalmology, SUNY at Buffalo, NY...KEEP READING
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JAMIE LEA SCHAEFER
Third Generation
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One of my earliest memories in Oculoplastics was running, in terror, up and down my father and grandfather’s office hallways, trying to escape my grandmother; she was the third person trying to place eyedrops in my eyes that afternoon. Since then, my experiences have been much more enjoyable.
Helping to organize slides into the carousel projectors for either a resident lecture or a lecture at a national meeting was the usual as a child in the Schaefer household. It piqued my interest in Oculoplastics at an early age.
| Seeing photographs of patients going through a trying time, followed by the results of the efforts of my father and grandfather, was just astonishing to me - I aspired to do something that could truly impact a person’s life that much. Another commonplace occurrence was those TV remote battles...KEEP READING | |
Photo: Jamie Lea's daughter Liviana Schaefer, potential fourth-generation oculofacial surgeon. | |  |
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ASOPRS Journey in the World of Advocacy: My Quest | | |
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Commentary by Stuart R. Seiff
As I began my career in medicine, I never thought that I would be sucked into the world of medical advocacy. But I guess stranger things have happened. Don Quixote sought to save the world by slaying windmills. Such has become my fate as well.
My first role was as an associate preceptor (program director) and then as a preceptor. Somehow, I was asked to chair the Preceptors Committee, which got me a non-voting role on the Executive Committee. This was followed by a job as Secretary of Meetings. From there came the three-year Presidential track, followed by the Chair position on the Committee for Government and Intersociety Affairs (a 10-year term). All of this provided me with a window seat on the EC for over two decades.
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by Jemshed Khan
In the eighties ASOPRS was smaller, more like a family. Spouses volunteered to assist with meeting registration. Children frolicked poolside at Spring Meetings, splashing and laughing and running. Over decades one watched them grow. Some of the generations of ASOPRS physicians that I observed included the Buergers, Schaefers, Epsteins, Rootmans, Katowitzes, Tses, Gavarises, Hollstens, Perrys, Solls, Stephensons, and Stasiors.
Studies of children who follow a parent into medicine reveal several common factors at play. The children recall visits to the medical workplace, where enthusiastic coworkers asked if they planned on becoming doctors, too. The seed was planted. Inevitably, odd medical artifacts made their appearance in the home: a specimen in formalin, a bag full of sheep eyes, and a glass prosthetic
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eye. These bizarre occurrences seemed normal in medical families.
Nature and nurture influence career choice in physician offspring. Physicians are often competitive and intelligent, both traits favoring a career that demands much sacrifice and effort but also provides ample rewards. Physician households can bankroll tuition costs that would bankrupt middle-class families; Ivy League tuition can exceed $90k/year. The intellectual and emotional challenge, altruism, income, and social status associated with being a physician all motivate career choices in multigenerational physician families.
Following a parent into Oculoplastics was easier when medicine was mostly solo or small-group private practice. Back then, after residency, one either "hung out a shingle" or went on to a fellowship. Most preceptors were private
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practitioners who helped at the University. Private practice was a small business enterprise built upon personal excellence, local relationships, and patient care. The physician of that era was a highly autonomous being whose expertise spanned several domains, whose level of education often exceeded that of other healthcare workers, and whose judgment and skill would routinely make the difference between life and death.
Much has changed, especially the decline in solo practice, the increasing expertise of other healthcare workers, and the loss of status afforded physicians. Most of all, institutional and government policy is now driven by corporate rather than public interest. Let's explore these changes and how they relate to physician families...
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SASOPRS Jonathan J. Dutton
Interview by John Woog
SASOPRS: Jonathan, we understand that your professional trajectory has been somewhat unusual, in that you had an illustrious career prior to pursuing medicine and oculofacial surgery, serving as an internationally renowned paleontologist and evolutionary biologist and a named Professor in the former field at Princeton University. How did you become interested in evolutionary biology?
J. Dutton: In college, I became close to the chair of biology, a herpetologist, and I spent many evenings on Long Island observing, catching, and raising frogs, salamanders, and various snakes with him and his family. I volunteered as a research assistant at the American Museum of Natural History and spent several summers at the Museum’s research station on LI. Because of my published research on fish behavior, I was awarded a fellowship at Harvard for PhD studies. After a year with the icons of evolutionary biology and paleontology at Harvard, I decided to major in vertebrate paleontology and evolutionary biology and spent years collecting and studying fossils in East Africa. Princeton offered me a position as Sinclair Professor of Paleontology and Director of the Princeton Natural History Museum, which I accepted in 1970.
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SASOPRS: We've heard that visiting your home is a little like visiting the Smithsonian, with a collection of fascinating artifacts from your paleontology-related travels around the world. What were some of your most unique destinations and most memorable academic paleontology projects?
J. Dutton: During my expeditions to Africa, I became fascinated with primitive art, which was used by the local peoples for social functions, religious symbolism, functionalism, and utilitarianism rather than purely creative purposes. I acquired many pieces from the local villages and from the doctors at a small one-room hospital near Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya, who often collected artifacts in exchange for medical treatment. My most memorable project was working with Richard Leakey as co-investigator of several National Geographic-sponsored expeditions to Lake Turkana. For my PhD thesis, I spent 14 months outside the US, traveling around the world studying fossils in 18 countries.
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SASOPRS: Can we ask what motivated you to pursue a career in medicine, given your tremendous accomplishments in paleontology and evolutionary biology? And how did you come to choose ophthalmology and oculofacial surgery?
J. Dutton: Fieldwork in East Africa was in the deserts where midday temperatures reached 120° F. We always returned to camp for a few afternoon hours where most of my colleagues and staff took a nap. Harvard had an intensive 2-week medical course for faculty and fellows who would be working away from medical help. So, I was the medical officer for the expeditions. While everyone else napped, I treated local tribespeople who came into camp with infections, spear wounds, cobra bites, and occasionally crocodile injuries. After doing this for 5 years, I decided that this was what I wanted to do.
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Honor a Mentor, Donate in 2024
Join the '2024 Strong' challenge, a call to all ASOPRS members to honor the mentors who have played a crucial role in your professional growth. A mentor is a trusted guide who has helped shape your future. Show your gratitude by donating to the ASOPRS Foundation in any denomination of 2024 in honor of your mentor.
Honor Your Mentor Today!
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