Eyes on the ball
Scheyer with Terry Kim, MD, head of the new Duke Sports Vision Center of Excellence, and Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who encouraged the center to treat members of the military as well as athletes.
ogist Terry Kim’s phone rang, and on the other end of the line was former
Duke basketball player Jon Scheyer, who in his senior year had helped lead the Blue Devils to the 2010 NCAA
Kim couldn’t believe it. Optic nerve damage usually happens with serious trauma, like a car accident. Eye pokes happen all the time in basketball, and they usually aren’t that big of a deal. Scheyer was about to fly to Chicago to be with his family, so Kim put him in touch with a friend and fellow ophthalmologist Kirk Packo, MD, in Chicago, who the next day confirmed the bad news. Scheyer had a very severe injury, called a partial optic nerve head avulsion, that would likely cause a permanent decrease in vision and visual field.
basketball championship. Kim had
Kim knew this type of injury could be devastating for Scheyer’s hopes of a pro basketball career. He flew to Chicago the next day to see Scheyer and his family himself.
examined Scheyer’s eyes every year since he joined the team as a freshman. On the phone, Scheyer didn’t sound like himself. He told Kim that while he was working out with an NBA Summer League team, another player had poked him in the eye. Then he put the team doctor on. The doctor said that Scheyer showed signs of optic nerve damage—a very serious injury.
After a career– changing eye injury, Scheyer turned to his Duke ophthalmologist for guidance.
“When I had my eye injury, the first person I called was my trainer from Duke to get ahold of Dr. Kim,” Scheyer says. “He is the only eye doctor I’ve seen my whole life. Since he flew out to Chicago to see me in the hospital, he has guided me through my recovery process. He has been not only a great doctor to have but a great friend as well.” In Chicago, Kim examined Scheyer’s eyes and spent the entire day with him and his family, explaining that the injury was serious but that it was too soon to tell
V I S I O N 2011 // 3
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n July 13, 2010, Duke ophthalmol-