Former UMSL Resident Achieves National Prominence
The soft toric and presbyopia
lens education (STAPLE) program is an exceptional workshop-based program in
which a prominent contact lens specialist is asked to provide a brief lecture
followed by a hands-on workshop at Colleges of Optometry. Every student has the opportunity to fit four
toric lens designs (for the soft toric workshop) and four soft multifocal
designs (for the presbyopia workshop).
Lenses are provided by Johnson & Johnson, Alcon, CooperVision, and
Bausch + Lomb. It is very noteworthy
that three of the faculty that are part of the core faculty for STAPLE are
former cornea and contact lens residents including Drs. Stephanie Woo(’12),
Matt Kauffman(’13), and Rob Ensley(’14).
The coordinator of the STAPLE program is Ursula Lotzkat who is especially
impressed with our residency graduates: “A hallmark of the STAPLE program is providing
guest speakers from clinical practice who share their expertise in the fitting
and management of astigmatic and presbyopic patients. Former UMSL cornea and
contact lens residents fill this role perfectly. Their contact lens training is
exceptional, plus since they have all participated in the program as residents
they really understand how to reach the student audience with practical
education.” Director of Residencies, Dr.
Julie DeKinder, agrees: “The STAPLE program has been a huge benefit to our
students for many years. The opportunity to fit several lenses in a short
amount of time not only increases the student knowledge of available lens
designs and applications, but also boosts their clinical confidence. For
the past several years we have been blessed with truly outstanding cornea and
contact lens residents. This is truly evident by seeing several of them
return to our school and go to other schools as a presenter for the STAPLE
program.”
Most recently, Dr. Kauffman –
who is part of the most prominent specialty contact lens practice in Houston
while also serving as a contact lens clinical instructor at the University of
Houston College of Optometry - provided the soft toric seminar and workshop at
UMSL on September 27th and did
an exceptional job and is excited to be part their educational team. “I had the
unique opportunity to experience the STAPLE program as both an optometry
student and as a UMSL contact lens residency-trained optometrist. I can say
from experience that the program is very beneficial to the optometry school
education program. Completing a contact lens residency at UMSL gave me more in
depth experience of fitting the toric and multifocal contact lens designs
utilized in the STAPLE program and has taught me how to effectively communicate
and teach those topics to optometry students.”
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| Dr. Matt Kauffman and Dr. Ed Bennett |
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