Dr. Melissa Trego Reflects on Her Tenure as ASCO President

Dr. Melissa Trego Reflects on Her Tenure as ASCO President

Melissa Trego, OD, PhD, immediate past president of ASCO, was recently featured on an episode of the Eye Give a Damn! Podcast, where she discussed her role as a leader in ASCO and some of the challenges the world of academic optometry currently faces.

“I had the pleasure of serving as the president of ASCO and what a wonderful group of colleagues, deans and presidents doing amazing things in optometric education,” said Dr. Trego, Dean of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) at Salus University who has a PhD in cellular and molecular biology. “There is a wonderful staff at ASCO and a great CEO-VP, Dawn Mancuso. Among the amazing things ASCO is doing, they have a lot of great diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and are really working on the applicant pool.”

She praised ASCO for coming together for the greater good to make sure the profession is getting the best applicants to create great clinicians. And, to ensure these applicants are not only diverse, but that the applicant pool remains robust for optometry to have good representation in the field.

During the podcast, Dr. Trego — the first female PCO/Salus graduate to become Dean of the College — discussed the expansive breadth of optometry as a profession, from clinical practice to research, education and beyond, as well as the amazing opportunities being a Doctor of Optometry offers.

“We just got off the tails of a really generous grant from Johnson & Johnson Vision who helped us with an Eye on Diversity series. Great resources, great cultural competency workshop, book, and toolkit,” said Dr. Trego on the podcast. “ASCO has really been working on these efforts for years. One of the first times one of these workshop pamphlets came out was in 2008. So ASCO's been ahead of the curve, which has been great. The ASCO president’s role for me was not only an honor and very humbling, but it was a really great way to connect with my peers. Sometimes when you feel isolated in this role, they were a great sounding board of friends and colleagues.”

She also discussed ASCO’s Optometry Gives Me Life (OGML) initiative, targeted toward students interested in STEM programs and making them aware of the opportunities available within the optometry profession.

“One of the goals of OGML is not only to increase that applicant pool, but to increase the diversity and also increase the quality of the students. We want good, diverse, and a nice amount of candidates to come in. But more importantly, we want to talk to them about it,” said Dr. Trego. “And, still, one of the best ways we know about the profession is from another optometrist, right?”

Dr. Trego called her tenure as ASCO president “one of the highlights of my career,” which she attributed to the people involved in the organization. “What I find amazing about ASCO is that we do come together and we do discuss things for the greater good for optometric education. And, that has just been really great to witness and see and be a part of,” she said.