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Key to the practice’s long-term success, says Barry Farkas, O.D., nephew of the founder, is having the flexibility to grow and change with the market, but always maintaining a specialist mentality. “That requires one to get involved early with the newest technologies to figure out who they work for and who they don’t,” he said. “And you can’t just rely on one or two favored lenses. We work with well over 300 different contact lenses, including many RGP lenses, daily disposables, multifocals, toric lenses, and specialty lenses for patients with keratoconus and other challenges.” The practice has evolved considerably as the younger generation joined—first Dr. Barry Farkas, followed by Theodore’s son Jordan Kassalow, O.D., and Susan Resnick, O.D.In St. Louis, another optometrist who had started dabbling in contact lenses early was Robert Koetting, O.D., the grandson of an optician and son of an optometrist. “In 1962, I began to take contact lenses seriously and limited my practice to them,” he said. He decided early on that his key market was affluent presbyopes, and did whatever it took to reach that market segment, including advertising in airline magazines for business travelers, hiring a PR agency, and becoming an arts patron. “Koetting and the other early contact lens practices converted a novelty into a successful specialty practice and showed the way for the rest of us,” said Carmen F. Castellano, O.D., who now owns Koetting Associates. “The way I practice today is all based on Koetting’s philosophy of going above and beyond the standard,” he said. Another of Dr. Koetting’slasting contributions was theconcept of the contact lens technician. He was one of the first to utilize technicalassistants and multiple exam rooms to see more patients in a day. It was a concept that20 |N. Rex Ghormley, O.D., on the N. Rex Ghormley, O.D., cover of the AOA journal in 1975, five years after refined in his own practice. establishing his contact lens He opened Vision Care specialty practice. Consultants in St. Louis in 1970, after working for Dr. Koetting for a few years, and focused exclusively on contact lenses for the next two decades. Whereas a typical practitioner at the time might have seen seven or eight patients in a day, Dr. Ghormley would see 30. “I think we helped to educate people about howbest to make use of technical staff and advanced, automated equipment in a professional practice,” he said.Other key early practitioners that laid the groundwork for the modern contact lens practices of today include Neal Bailey, O.D., in Ohio; Rodger T.Kame, O.D., and Melvin J. Remba, O.D., in California; Robert Kennedy, O.D., in Minnesota; Jack Solomon, O.D., in Florida; and Clarence McEachern, O.D., and Wayne S. Cannon, O.D., in South Carolina.Others made tremendous contributions to contact lens practice through academic research, developing novel devices and identifying corneal anomalies.
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