Upstate Medical University and the SUNY College of Optometry are joining forces to increase the number of trained eye doctors in Central and Western New York. This partnership provides an affordable option for aspiring optometrists, according to Dr. Robert Fechtner, professor and chair of ophthalmology and visual sciences at Upstate.
On this week's "HealthLink on Air," he explans how the program offers the chance to train in Syracuse, rather than at the optometry school's Manhattan campus. Fechtner discusses the career of optometry and what training will be like for the program, which launches in the fall of 2025.
Also on the show, author Janice Nimura discusses her book about Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in America to receive a medical degree, from a predecessor to what is now Upstate Medical University. "The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sister Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography in 2022. It's the story of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, both of whom became doctors in the mid-1800s and went on to open the first hospital staffed entirely by women, in New York City.
And Dr. Robert Gregory, an Upstate psychiatrist, briefly explains how to spot suicidal behavior.
Listen to Healthlink on Air every Sunday at 6 a.m. on WRVO.