Prospectus
MEMBERSHIP NEWS & UPDATES
VOL. 48 | ISSUE 1 | 2022
Letter from the President By Viola Kanevsky, OD A s I consider how to address my colleagues this month, my fingers idle limply on my keyboard. My eyes glaze over as I stare at the screen. My soul feels numb. What is there to say after when having survived a pandemic, we look on in collective horror as history repeats itself and the world burns before our eyes? Over the past two years I have quietly shared my worst fear with friends and family that every pandemic ends in economic turmoil and finally in war. I am a child of immigrants. Actually, I am an immigrant myself. I was born in Dnepropetrovsk and my family moved to Moscow a year later. At that time, both were part of the Soviet Union. Today, my birthplace, renamed Dnipro, lies in the heart of the Ukraine, and the city I lived in as a young child, is the heart of Russia. I have friends and colleagues and relatives in both. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, Americans used to ask me if I was Russian. Now they ask me if I am Ukranian. Old Soviet-era passports listed one’s “nationality” on the front page – Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Uzbekestani, etc… but mine was stamped, “Jew.” I was only a little kid but I knew I didn’t belong somehow. My family, one by one and two by two, emigrated. My mother and I travelled by train to Austria, by plane to Israel, then on to France, Belgium, and finally to the United States. With each relocation, with each new school, with each new language, we studied, worked, made friends, tried hard to fit in. My most earnest desire has always been to belong. To feel like I was an integral part of a community. I wanted people to stop asking me where I was from. It is the story of every traveler. The eternal immigrant. Always stuck between worlds, between cultures. But somehow this never happened. I practiced in front of a mirror to get rid of my accent. I read everything I could get my hands on to learn proper English. I watched endless sitcoms to learn American idioms and slang. But my clothes were not quite right and my opinions were a little different, and the lunches my mom packed for school were odd. I wasn’t invited to the birthday parties. I
COVID-19 Resources The NYSOA and AOA are committed to supporting and serving members during the COVID-19 pandemic. Please visit our resources pages online and contact us with specific requests or questions. NYSOA COVID-19 Resources: www.nysoa.org/covid-19 Latest updates from the American Optometric Association: www.aoa.org/covid-19/covid-19-latest-updates New York State Updates: coronavirus.health.ny.gov
didn’t go to the mall. I just didn’t belong. Until I got to Optometry School. In the diverse community of eye doctors and New Yorkers, I suddenly found friends. Friends who didn’t ask where I was from. Colleagues who had the same daily experience as I. A family of sorts who knew exactly what my life was like and knew how to commiserate. They didn’t care about my religion or lack thereof, they didn’t care where I was born or what I ate or wore, but they seemed to care about me, and I began to care about them. I found optometrists to be a motley crew at times but on the whole, they all had something in common. They were compassionate. They were good listeners. They were genuinely nice. They were generous and unselfish. Tonight, as I write this, a 15-year-old boy and his mother are travelling on a train from the city of my birth to Poland. They have been on this train for the last 20 hours and have 8 more to go. They send me photos of passengers on the floor, sleeping on the luggage racks, in every corner and any crevice. When they disembark, they will board a bus that will take them to Berlin. It will take 26 more hours to get there. Our friends will meet them there, take the boy and put him on a plane, to me, in NY. His mom will wave goodbye and brave the journey back to be with her older son and her husband, who cannot leave because they stand ready to fight for their home. My many optometric colleagues have reached out to me by phone, by text, by email, on facebook and instagram…offering help and support. Dima isn’t even here yet. He will arrive exhausted and scared and homesick. I know exactly how he will feel. And because of my optometric family, I will know exactly how to make him feel at home. Support one another. In the 21st century, we are all citizens of one planet. What hurts a child in Moscow, pains another in London. What ails one in Kiev, harms one in New York. As doctors we are trained to listen and to heal and above all do no harm. We are perhaps uniquely suited to bring about peace in the world. Do everything in your power to heal the people of our planet. Sincerely, Viola Kanevsky, OD, President, NYSOA
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