2018 Future Leaders of Optometry Award The Preston Cup to Kentucky College of Optometry's Private Practice Club
(KYCO PPC)!
Award presented at the 8th Annual Student Optometric Leadership Network (SOLutioN) Leadership Conference in Houston, TX
President: Aaron Mullins President-Elect: Ambrosia Makini
Congratulations KYCO PPC!
What are the activities your club has done over the past year to advance business education for our student members?
Considering that KYCO PPC was founded just this year, we far exceeded what we hoped to accomplish in regard to delivering quality business education to our members. As a new club, SOLN and its affiliated members provided us with invaluable resources to get underway; in turn, I think our fresh perspective gave rise to some new initiatives that advance the personal, professional, and intellectual growth of our members that we are excited to share with you.
1) OD Spotlight – ( https://kycoppc.wordpress.com/ ) The OD Spotlight is a series of interviews with private practice doctors from Kentucky and around the United States. We created a standardized questionnaire that we send out to ODs across the country to ask about all the things our members would want to know! We have a print-version we distribute around campus and have created an online archive on our Wordpress page. So far, we have interviewed ODs working in Kentucky, Virginia, Iowa, and Hawai’i. This is a great way for our members to envision themselves in private practice settings across the country.
2) 20/20 Isn’t Everything Workshop – ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlsg7RHJ7oM ) KYCO PPC conducted an interactive workshop with school teachers at Riverview Elementary in Grundy, Virginia. We edited together a short video to document the experience. Not only did this workshop help to raise awareness about children’s eye exams, it also encompassed a legislative, advocacy, and marketing component. Our aim was to equip our members with the skill-set that they will need as practicing ODs to establish themselves within a community, build their brand, and educate patients about the services they provide.
3) Private Practice Extended Loan Library Our Executive Board coordinated with the Vision Sciences Library to secure $1,000 for a shelf of KYCO PPC approved resources that are available for extended amounts of time. We also designed a PPC webpage linked to the Library’s Student Resource page. The LibPage includes information about the club geared towards new members as well as information about professional associations and conferences. We have included websites relevant to the mission of both the club and the optometry program. Our content includes recommended podcasts, books (both electronic and physical), relevant journals, and database information related to optometry, business, and legal subjects.
4) Kick-off event: Control Your Career Sponsored by VSP, Vernon Dela Cruz, Dr. Will To, and Dr. Matt Geller spoke with us about interviewing skills, resumes, and contract negotiations.
5) September meeting: Contact Lenses in Private Practice Alcon representatives, Shelia Ladd and Chad Wilson, discussed the importance of contact lens sales in a private practice and the significance of having good relationships with local sales representatives.
6) October meeting: Steps to Practice Ownership Bill Nolan, Executive VP of Williams Group, highlighted four basic ways to enter a practice and discussed key factors to consider during a practice acquisition.
7) November meeting: The Blue Ocean Strategy Dr. Mile Brujic of Optometric Insights provided us with a helpful overview of a philosophy that will help set our practice apart from other optometrists.
8) 2nd November meeting: Doctor Driven Dispensing Dr. Pete Kehoe, former AOA President and Professional Relations Advisor for Transitions Optical, spoke with us about lifestyle dispensing and engaging with patients on meeting their needs for eyewear.
9) January meeting: SECO Night Dr. Max Raynor, VP of SECO, shared with us some clinical pearls from his own experience in private practice and emphasized the value of attending optometric conferences such as SECO.
10) March meeting: 15 Financial Rules to Live By Ron Durham and Anthony Pooler, financial consultants of Lifetime Financial Growth, met with our Executive Board members to discuss the importance of liability insurance for students. We also learned about their financial planning services and hope to have them return next year to speak to the third-year students.
11) April meeting: Maximizing LASIK co-management Revenue Jim Price of TLC Vision is coming in April to detail how optometrists can benefit in the co-management of LASIK patients.
How have you worked to improve your club over the past year?
Upon our return from the SOLN conference, we realized that an essential part of building a club from the ground up would require creating a brand identity. Because your brand encapsulates what your organization stands for, the mission, the look, the purpose, we spent a considerable amount of effort on crafting our image.
We started by having professional headshots taken of everyone on our executive board. A local photographer was willing to do these in exchange for some free advertising! After posting our photos on social media, we encouraged all our members to start building their professional portfolios now by having professional photos taken.
We also held a design contest for a KYCO PPC logo. The result was a sleek and clean representation that resonates with the mission of our club as well as our school.
Our social media presence is continuing to expand, and it’s not uncommon to see students rocking some KYCO PPC swag around campus – T-shirts, stickers, lapel pins. Social media also served as the perfect platform to conduct our E-Board elections. By campaigning on such a public stage, we could begin to vet those with the communication skills necessary for the President-Elect position.
The way we designed our bylaws allows the general membership of the club to vote on our cabinet positions, but the President-Elect position is voted on by the executive board. We felt that this method would help to ensure that the job will always fall to the right person.
What way has your club and/or club leaders helped to advance the Student Optometric Leadership Network (SOLN)?
With our OD Spotlight initiative, we always make sure to inform the participating doctors that their audience isn’t just KYCO PPC, but members of SOLN as well. This has allowed us to raise awareness about SOLN’s existence with existing practitioners across the country.
Eastern Kentucky Broadcasting, one of our local TV and radio networks, featured our incoming president, Aaron Mullins, back in October. During the interview, Aaron explained who comprises the membership of SOLN and what their mission is. He elaborated on his experience at the SOLN conference and talked about what an amazing opportunity the conference presents to network with future colleagues.
During orientation week for the Class of 2021, our President, Mary Beth Massengill, spoke with the incoming first year students to recruit members for the club. She was able to relay some of her experiences at the SOLN conference and shared with everyone the promotional video that SOLN had produced at the Vision Expo conference. She ensured that students and faculty at KYCO came to appreciate and understand the role that SOLN plays in strengthening and uniting the practice management clubs across North America.
In the spirit of cooperation, the officers of KYCO PPC strive to strengthen ties with other members of SOLN by posting periodic updates on what our club is up to, as well as to follow other clubs online and offer our support. We can’t overstate how helpful these relationships were in getting us started, from advice on how to coordinate with guest speakers, to ways of improving attendance at events.
Considering that KYCO PPC was founded just this year, we far exceeded what we hoped to accomplish in regard to delivering quality business education to our members. As a new club, SOLN and its affiliated members provided us with invaluable resources to get underway; in turn, I think our fresh perspective gave rise to some new initiatives that advance the personal, professional, and intellectual growth of our members that we are excited to share with you.
1) OD Spotlight – ( https://kycoppc.wordpress.com/ ) The OD Spotlight is a series of interviews with private practice doctors from Kentucky and around the United States. We created a standardized questionnaire that we send out to ODs across the country to ask about all the things our members would want to know! We have a print-version we distribute around campus and have created an online archive on our Wordpress page. So far, we have interviewed ODs working in Kentucky, Virginia, Iowa, and Hawai’i. This is a great way for our members to envision themselves in private practice settings across the country.
2) 20/20 Isn’t Everything Workshop – ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlsg7RHJ7oM ) KYCO PPC conducted an interactive workshop with school teachers at Riverview Elementary in Grundy, Virginia. We edited together a short video to document the experience. Not only did this workshop help to raise awareness about children’s eye exams, it also encompassed a legislative, advocacy, and marketing component. Our aim was to equip our members with the skill-set that they will need as practicing ODs to establish themselves within a community, build their brand, and educate patients about the services they provide.
3) Private Practice Extended Loan Library Our Executive Board coordinated with the Vision Sciences Library to secure $1,000 for a shelf of KYCO PPC approved resources that are available for extended amounts of time. We also designed a PPC webpage linked to the Library’s Student Resource page. The LibPage includes information about the club geared towards new members as well as information about professional associations and conferences. We have included websites relevant to the mission of both the club and the optometry program. Our content includes recommended podcasts, books (both electronic and physical), relevant journals, and database information related to optometry, business, and legal subjects.
4) Kick-off event: Control Your Career Sponsored by VSP, Vernon Dela Cruz, Dr. Will To, and Dr. Matt Geller spoke with us about interviewing skills, resumes, and contract negotiations.
5) September meeting: Contact Lenses in Private Practice Alcon representatives, Shelia Ladd and Chad Wilson, discussed the importance of contact lens sales in a private practice and the significance of having good relationships with local sales representatives.
6) October meeting: Steps to Practice Ownership Bill Nolan, Executive VP of Williams Group, highlighted four basic ways to enter a practice and discussed key factors to consider during a practice acquisition.
7) November meeting: The Blue Ocean Strategy Dr. Mile Brujic of Optometric Insights provided us with a helpful overview of a philosophy that will help set our practice apart from other optometrists.
8) 2nd November meeting: Doctor Driven Dispensing Dr. Pete Kehoe, former AOA President and Professional Relations Advisor for Transitions Optical, spoke with us about lifestyle dispensing and engaging with patients on meeting their needs for eyewear.
9) January meeting: SECO Night Dr. Max Raynor, VP of SECO, shared with us some clinical pearls from his own experience in private practice and emphasized the value of attending optometric conferences such as SECO.
10) March meeting: 15 Financial Rules to Live By Ron Durham and Anthony Pooler, financial consultants of Lifetime Financial Growth, met with our Executive Board members to discuss the importance of liability insurance for students. We also learned about their financial planning services and hope to have them return next year to speak to the third-year students.
11) April meeting: Maximizing LASIK co-management Revenue Jim Price of TLC Vision is coming in April to detail how optometrists can benefit in the co-management of LASIK patients.
How have you worked to improve your club over the past year?
Upon our return from the SOLN conference, we realized that an essential part of building a club from the ground up would require creating a brand identity. Because your brand encapsulates what your organization stands for, the mission, the look, the purpose, we spent a considerable amount of effort on crafting our image.
We started by having professional headshots taken of everyone on our executive board. A local photographer was willing to do these in exchange for some free advertising! After posting our photos on social media, we encouraged all our members to start building their professional portfolios now by having professional photos taken.
We also held a design contest for a KYCO PPC logo. The result was a sleek and clean representation that resonates with the mission of our club as well as our school.
Our social media presence is continuing to expand, and it’s not uncommon to see students rocking some KYCO PPC swag around campus – T-shirts, stickers, lapel pins. Social media also served as the perfect platform to conduct our E-Board elections. By campaigning on such a public stage, we could begin to vet those with the communication skills necessary for the President-Elect position.
The way we designed our bylaws allows the general membership of the club to vote on our cabinet positions, but the President-Elect position is voted on by the executive board. We felt that this method would help to ensure that the job will always fall to the right person.
What way has your club and/or club leaders helped to advance the Student Optometric Leadership Network (SOLN)?
With our OD Spotlight initiative, we always make sure to inform the participating doctors that their audience isn’t just KYCO PPC, but members of SOLN as well. This has allowed us to raise awareness about SOLN’s existence with existing practitioners across the country.
Eastern Kentucky Broadcasting, one of our local TV and radio networks, featured our incoming president, Aaron Mullins, back in October. During the interview, Aaron explained who comprises the membership of SOLN and what their mission is. He elaborated on his experience at the SOLN conference and talked about what an amazing opportunity the conference presents to network with future colleagues.
During orientation week for the Class of 2021, our President, Mary Beth Massengill, spoke with the incoming first year students to recruit members for the club. She was able to relay some of her experiences at the SOLN conference and shared with everyone the promotional video that SOLN had produced at the Vision Expo conference. She ensured that students and faculty at KYCO came to appreciate and understand the role that SOLN plays in strengthening and uniting the practice management clubs across North America.
In the spirit of cooperation, the officers of KYCO PPC strive to strengthen ties with other members of SOLN by posting periodic updates on what our club is up to, as well as to follow other clubs online and offer our support. We can’t overstate how helpful these relationships were in getting us started, from advice on how to coordinate with guest speakers, to ways of improving attendance at events.
KYCO PPC's Executive Board 2017-18
20/20 Isn't Everything Workshop Video
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