Janene Sims, OD, PhD, FAAO, is the state’s 2022 Optometric Educator of the Year. The American Optometric Association (ALOA) granted the associate professor this honor.
“The goal of optometric educators is to prepare the future leaders of the profession,” she said. “This includes business owners, researchers, political advocates, and teachers. It is very humbling to be recognized for doing something you love.”
Sims joined the UAB School of Optometry’s faculty full-time in 2003. Her plan after earning her Doctor of Optometry degree from UAB in 1996 was to join a private practice. However, a clinical encounter with Melvin Shipp OD, MPH, DrPH, a former faculty member, made Sims rethink her initial goal and consider academia as a career.
She recalls the moment as if it happened yesterday. “Dr. Melvin Shipp asked, ‘Are you sure you saw everything in the right eye?” she says. “’Take another look.’ I strapped back on my binocular indirect ophthalmoscope and found a small area of RPE hyperplasia. Instead of making me feel bad for missing a peripheral finding, he congratulated me with a ‘great job.’
“I asked him ‘Why can't there be more faculty like you?’ and he answered my question with a question. ‘Why can’t it be you?’”
Today, Sims occupies the office that once belonged to Shipp, then the only UAB School of Optometry African American faculty member. He became the first African American optometry school dean in the nation after taking the helm at The Ohio State University.
At the School, Sims is service director for Community Eye Care (CEC), the Primary Care resident supervisor, and the director of Academic Integrity. She precepts in the Primary Care and CEC clinics, and is course director for the Professional Communication and Introduction to Clinic courses also. Outside the school, Sims serves as advisor for the National Optometric Student Association and is a member of the Equity Leadership Council for the University.
From her many roles and responsibilities, there is an important lesson Sims enjoys passing on to her students: Make the most of what you have.
“Dr. Felton Perry, former CEC service director, would encourage us to think outside of the box to be able to perform an exam or vision screening in less ideal situations so that patients can feel confident that they received a quality exam,” she says. “I was thrilled when one of my former students, Dr. Dylan Cowan, sent me pictures of his externship site in Alaska. Because of his CEC training in the Blackbelt, he knew exactly how to set up the tripods and phoropters for mobile refractions. His preceptors were very impressed!”
Sims says that the ability to convey complex knowledge to students yields an educated student as well as an informed patient.
“We are also patient educators who strive to effectively communicate diagnoses, possible outcomes, and recommendations,” she says. “Compliant patients are usually very knowledgeable of their condition. I’d like to think that we had a part in that.”