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Surviving September 11 took more than courage. It took preparation, trust, and the ability to manage fear. I share my experience escaping from the 78th floor of the World Trade Center with my guide dog, Roselle, and the lessons that shaped how I responded that morning. You'll hear how years of learning my surroundings, trusting my training, and understanding my role as a leader helped me stay focused during the evacuation. I also explore blindness, the limits society places on blind people, and the power of teamwork between a guide dog and handler. Most of all, this story is about focusing on what you can control, trusting the relationships you've built, and preparing yourself to act when fear shows up. Highlights: 00:10 – Why Michael is revisiting September 11, 25 years later. 11:45 – How Michael learned that blindness itself isn't the limitation. 32:50 – Why preparation inside the World Trade Center mattered when crisis hit. 36:40 – How staying calm helped Michael lead others toward safety. 44:46 – The lesson Michael heard while running from the collapsing tower. 51:59 – What Roselle taught Michael about fear, trust, and moving forward. About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Transcript: Michael Hingson  00:04 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. I am your host, Mike Hingson, and today we're doing something a little bit different. This is Friday, september 4, 20/26, and this is the first of four episodes commemorating all of the events that happened in and around September 11, 2001. As many of you know, I was in the World Trade Center working for a company. I had opened an office for them on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center, and on September 11th, I was in my office because we were going to be doing some special sales training for people, and I was there getting prepared to do all of that when the terrorists attacked the towers, and then later the Pentagon. And as you may know, a fourth aircraft was crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, because people on the aircraft took it over from the terrorists or tried to anyway, so one of the things that we thought would be helpful would be for me to give you again a taste of what I actually went through and what occurred on September 11, 2001, when we started this podcast back in August of 2021, I played a speech that talked about some of what happened to me in the World Trade Center. But today we're going to do a different speech. In April of 2024, I was invited to be a speaker at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. Now that festival is a yearly event celebrating and commemorating different events in American history. In 2024, I was invited to come and speak and talk about my experience at the World Trade Center and to help put some of that into context. I thought it would be very relevant for all of you if we played that speech for you, so that you would again get a taste of what occurred with me, why I was able to survive and escape, and a little bit about the lessons that we should learn about not only September 11th, but frankly, from my perspective, being the fact that I have been blind since I was born in 1950, I want you to learn a little bit more about blindness. So we're going to present to you now my speech delivered in April on April 27, 2024, at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. I hope that you'll enjoy it. I hope that it will teach you some things, and don't forget that we have other episodes coming up. We have another episode occurring on the eighth of September where I'm going to be interviewed by Michelle Abraham from Amplify You. Amplify You is the company that I work with to get these podcasts out twice a week, and Michelle has her own podcast, and she's going to interview me to talk about lessons we've learned, to talk a little bit about what happened on September 11th. But we won't give anything away for what's going to happen later in this series of episodes. On September 11th, I will be talking with Bob Ellis. Bob was at the Pentagon on September 11th and literally just walked out the door just before the aircraft hit the Pentagon. We're going to talk about that and again, hopefully, put some of things in perspective for you. Then on the 15th of September, I'm going to come back on episode 475 of our podcast, and talk a little bit more in detail about the lessons that I've learned, and talk about things that I hope people will take away and remember from september 11. I know many of you weren't even born when the World Trade Center terrorist attacks occurred, and so this episode 472, especially, I hope will give you a little bit better sense of what occurred, and from my perspective, why things occurred the way they did, and and how we proceed. So I hope you'll enjoy this episode. Hope that you'll enjoy what it brings, and we will definitely be moving forward to talk about some other things later on. Speaker 1  04:24 There are moments in American history that changed the national conscience. Yesterday, we heard about the assassination of President Kennedy. Some of you might be old enough to remember the attack of Pearl Harbor, and for most recently in American history, of course, the terrorist attacks September 11th. Today, you're going to hear a riveting account, a a heroic story of a man whose story I believe will really pull at your heartstrings. And to moderate that panel today, or that interview, to do is conduct our interview. Today is Mary Acher, who's no stranger to this stage, good friend, presidential historian, and a great interviewer. If you'll put your hands together for Miss Mary, Speaker 2  05:11 I just am so honored to met Michael Hinkson and Alamo. You know by what you see that he came down on the 78th floor of the North Tower with his guide dog Brosel, but I have a friend named Doug Weed who always told me, "You don't brag on yourself; you get somebody else to brag on you. And I want to brag on Michael before we start this. Before I ask him to tell this story, Michael was a premature baby, and at the time when he was born, they put the babies in pre in a the premature babies in a incubator sealed with 100% oxygen, and the doctors didn't know that then, but it blinded the children, and Michael was blinded at birth. So Michael was very fortunate that he had parents that refused to allow him to even think about being disabled. They mainstreamed him before mainstreaming was even known, and they taught him to ride a bicycle. They let him drive a car, and later in his life, he actually piloted an airplane. Is that amazing? He loved mathematics. He loved physics. He was taught geometry. He solved math problems in his head. He's got a master's degree in physics and another-not a master's, but a regular in in teaching. So that is why he is such an amazing man. He's never ever let this what enough people call a disability stop him at all? As a matter of fact, he has been such an amazing gift to the unsighted community in in the Braille and things that technology that blind people can utilize to be online and be all kinds of of things that they wouldn't ever have been allowed to do even 50 years ago. So anyway, I'm just so honored to have met you, Michael. It's just been amazing. I'm going to take him to Lambert's tomorrow. He says I have to catch the rolls, or somebody else will catch them and they'll eat them and he won't get it. I promised him I'd catch the rolls. All right, my dear Michael, would you start telling us about that horrendous day? I am Michael Hingson  08:00 going to not do what I said I was gonna do. I'm gonna stand up, and I'm gonna be very interested to go to Lambert's to see what they do with me, since normally they would throw the rolls, as I understand it. And I'm gonna point out that doesn't really work. So now, what are you gonna do? Because if they all fall on the floor and the dog gets them, and the dog gets sick, you guys are in trouble. So I'll be interested to see exactly what happens. No, I'm sure it will work out. Mary, thank you for those those kind words. I'd like to start by defining a couple things to help us in all of this. Mary is absolutely right about what my parents did in their position, the doctors told my parents when it was discovered I was blind at about four months of age that I should be sent to a home because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything or contribute to society. If you think that's bad, it was worse in other parts of the world where, when children were born who were blind, were just drowned in a bucket of water. So, in a sense, it wasn't as bad. Not every child who was born premature and put in an incubator did go blind, and it's unfortunate, in a sense, that at the time that I was born. Dr. Arnold Papps at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University had discovered that, in fact, oxygen could cause blindness, and even a few minutes a day of a non-oxygen environment would drop the incidence of blindness down to zero. But medical science didn't believe him because they said, "Well, too much oxygen can't be a problem. And what Dr. Arnold Pats essentially really proved is that too much of anything can be a problem. So it is it is an issue. I finally actually some time ago got to meet Dr. Pats. Before he passed, it was it was fascinating to talk with him about that. The condition at the time when I was born was called retroenterial fibroplasia. If you want to know how to spell that, I wrote a book called Thunderdog: The Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero, which we plan to have here, but the publisher messed up, so it wasn't. But you can go buy Thunderdog anywhere, and you can learn how to spell retrolateral fibroplegia. It is now called retinopathyoprematurity. I guess that's a little easier to spell. I don't know still why they changed the name, but they did. So fine, I don't care. I am blind. I don't care. Blindness isn't the problem. I've learned from my parents and growing up and being alive now for yep 74 years, blindness isn't the problem. The problem is our perception of blindness, what we believe blind people can and can't do, as opposed to what they truly can and can't do. If you want to really see a story or something about a blind person driving a car, there is a website www.blinddriverchallenge.org. Blinddriverchallenge.org. The president of the National Federation of the Blind in October of 2001 challenged private industry and universities to create a vehicle that a blind person could drive, not an autonomous vehicle, but truly a vehicle that would transmit to the blind person the information necessary for them to drive the vehicle. What you will see at blinddriverchallenge.org is a video of a gentleman named Mark Riccobono. Too many marks. Mark Riccobono driving a vehicle independently without any assistance around the Daytona Speedway, right before the 2011 Rolex 24 race, he will go through an obstacle course. He will pass boxes that are being thrown out of a van to try to block his way. He will pass the van and a number of things like that. The reality is, what is driving? It's all about you having the information necessary for you to control your vehicle, and as far as I'm concerned, given what Mark Riccobono did, and given the reality that the information is available to us, given the way most sighted drivers drive, I'll take me any day, especially where I live in Victorville. My gosh! But the the reality is, blindness isn't the problem. I grew up believing that I went to public school. I went to college. Michael Hingson  12:26 I did get a master's degree in physics. As I love to tell people, I'm as good as Doc Brown from Back to the Future in building reactors and nuclear bombs. The only difference between me and Doc Brown is I won't go steal fissionable material from some source that might come after me later. So you know, I think I was a little smarter than Doc Brown, but the fact is, again, it's not the problem. I was also the program director of the campus radio station for a while, and I worked at the campus radio station KUCI 89.9 on your FM dial for seven years. I did a show playing old radio shows every Sunday night from six to nine. Didn't even know what 60 minutes was. I heard about it, and one day finally somebody from the show or from the the Orange County Jail called and said, "We really got a situation. We want you to know about it here at the jail. People who heard about you, they've heard about 60 minutes, and on Sunday nights we have to divide the jail in half. Half of the people go up to a television room to watch 60 Minutes, and the other half, which is the bigger half, want to hear your show playing old radio shows on Sunday nights. So you know we must be doing something right. That even at the jail, they liked us. I went to work in 1976 for the National Federation of the Blind. It's the largest organization of blind consumers in the country. I was offered a position because I was in in the science world, one of the few at the time in that world. And the president of the federation, Dr. Jernigan, told me in late 74, early 75, we got a situation. There's a guy named Ray Kurzweil. You may have heard of Ray. He's a futurist. He's an inventor. He's invented the singularity. I'm not totally sure I agree with everything that Ray says. You know, Ray once said the only problem with God is we haven't invented it yet. I don't agree with that. And the other part about it is Ray says that we're really going to all become part of the world when chips are created that will allow us to directly interact with computers. Well, we'll see. I don't want to chip in my brain yet. But Ray at that time had developed a piece of technology that would actually look at a printed page. It actually had to build it up line by line, so it wasn't like snapping a picture. But it would learn to recognize all the characters on that page, no matter what their type styles or print styles were, and it would read it out loud, called the Kurzweil Reading Machine for the Blind. Just like with blindness and retro-entral fibroblasia, the government didn't believe he could do it because nobody else had been able to do it, and so they wouldn't help fund it. He came to the federation, and the federation said, "Tell you what we're going to do." Ray, I'm not sure they said it quite that way, but tell you what we're going to do, Ray. We're going to send somebody up there with a bunch of material, and if your machine reads what we bring up, not what you want to read, if it reads what we bring up, then we're going to help you get funding. And Ray, I'm sure again it wasn't quite the way he said it, but he said, "Bring it on. They did. It did, and a relationship began that exists to this day-a machine that literally would read print out loud. And Ray wanted the first application of omnivore optical character recognition to be a machine that would read print out loud for blind people. We created a project where we purchased several machines, and then for 18 months, from 1976, in October through June of 1978, I lived in suitcases or out of suitcases in hotels, traveling around the country where we put machines at places like the New York Public Library, the Iowa Commission for the Blind, the San Francisco Public Library, and some other agencies for the blind around the country. Michael Hingson  15:59 The idea being that we wanted blind people to come and use the machine, read whatever they wanted to read, and then give us information about what needed to go into a final production model of the machine. I wrote training curriculum. I wrote the the technical manuals for teaching people how to use the machine. I taught people to use it. I observed people using it. Sometimes grabbed my old soldering gun and fix things that broke on the machines. These were $50,000, 400 pound machines. They weren't little things like an app on an iPhone today, right? So anyway, we finally wrote the final recommendations, and then Ray said, "I want to hire you to come and do the same sort of thing within the company. So I went to work for Ray, moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Actually, I learned I moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts, learned how to go from Winthrop to Cambridge every day, and we began a relationship. And I worked at Kurzweil Computer Products, in and that started in again October of 1978. In May of 1978, I was called into the office of the VP of Marketing, and Andrew Parson said, "We're laying you off. What? We're laying you off. Why? Oh, it's not that you're doing a bad job or anything, but unfortunately, like a lot of engineering startup companies, we've hired too many people who aren't revenue producers, and we have to have more revenue producers. And so, as important as your job is, it's not as important as making money for the company. So we have to lay you off. Then he paused and he said, "Unless you'll go into sales. Now, I'm a science guy. However, I thought about it for a micro nanosecond, and I said, "Sure, I'll go into sales. As I love to tell people, I decided I would lower my standards and go from science to sales, and did. I said I don't know anything about sales. He said we'll send you to a Dale Carnegie sales course and all that. Well, I started selling, but not the reading machine for the blind. Instead, I sold a new product they had called the Kurzweil Data Entry Machine, and unlike the reading machine for the blind that sold for $50,000, if you want one, we might be able to find one of the old machines for you for 49 995. Instead, I sold a new product called the Kurzweil Data Entry Machine, which was only $125,000. I guess they had confidence in my ability, and I was very grateful for it. The real reason that I didn't want to refuse the sales position is I knew that at that time, and it's still somewhat today, the unemployment rate among employable blind people is close to 70. That is seven 0% It's not because we can't do the work; it's because people think we won't be able to do the work and don't give us the opportunity. So the bottom line is, I lowered my standards and went from science to sales, and did that for a while. And then in 1981, while Xerox was considering and actually working toward buying the product, I was asked by Ray and the VP of Sales to move back to California, where I was from, to help integrate Kurzweil into the Xerox West Coast environment, including their research center called Palo Alto Area Research Center Park, and I did. And my thanks for that was that after the the whole sale was consummated and Xerox completely took over. I was the last salesperson in June of 1984 to receive a FedEx letter saying thank you for your service, but we don't want you anymore. Goodbye, because all Xerox wanted was the technology. They didn't want the people. Now I was confronted with the situation. How am I going to find a job? What am I going to do? 70% unemployment. and I went out and I wrote lots of cover letters, sent out lots of resumes, and I even got a headhunter who called me and said, "Love your resume. We're going to have you interview with this company up in San Jose, California. We'll send you a ticket. They sent me the ticket the night before the flight. The guy called. Back and he says, "You know, I was just looking at your resume again. I see you do a lot of things with blind people. Michael Hingson  20:04 Is there somebody in your family who's blind? You notice that? And I said, "Yeah, I'm blind. You're blind? Well, I'm going to have to call them. They're not going to want to talk to you. I said, "Nothing has changed. My resume is still the same, but you're blind. It's all changed. No, it hasn't. There were no laws to stand on. The reservation was canceled, and I didn't do the interview. Their loss. If Speaker 3  20:30 you enjoy Unstoppable Mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week, we've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Michael Hingson  21:02 Eventually, not finding a job, I started my own company selling computer-aided design systems to architects. A blind guy selling CAD systems? Why the heck not? I didn't need to work the machine. What I needed to know was how to work the machine, so I could describe it to architects, and I could sit them down in front of a machine and talk with them and talk them through it. We also hired people to demo CAD systems, and I did that for four years. And then I went back into the workforce. And when I went back into the workforce, my wife and I were talking one day, and she said, "You know, I got this great job I just discovered in the newspaper. It's selling high-end, new, revolutionary, hot, pluggable disc technology. It's perfect for you. You should apply. And I said to my wife Karen, who I had married in 1982. By the way, Karen also had a disability. She was in a wheelchair her whole life. She reads. I push. Worked out well. I said, so do I say in my cover letter I'm blind or not? Because typically, if you say you're blind, same thing will happen with the headhunter. You won't even get a call back if you don't say you're blind. You might get a callback, but then they're going to have all their defenses go up when you show up for the interview. And she said, "You're an idiot. Wives can do that, gentlemen, and it's fine. You're an idiot. Why? What's the most important thing you always said to every salesperson you ever hired, well, I wasn't quite sure which things she was thinking of. I had several things that I always said to salespeople I hired. She said, "You always told every salesperson you ever hired turn here's the operative word perceived liabilities into assets. You ever watch those little cartoons in the newspapers and all that, where the light bulb goes on over your head. Well, that's what happened, and I went and I wrote a cover letter to send with this resume to this company. And here are the last two paragraphs of the letter. The most important thing you need to know about me is that I am blind. As a blind person, I have had to sell all my life just to be able to function and survive. I've had to sell to take my guide dog on airplanes. I didn't tell them that we had to sue one airline because they violated their own policy because they wouldn't let me go on an airplane with my guide dog. I've had to sell to convince people to let me buy a house, move into apartments, sometimes take my guide dog into grocery stores, and do anything else because I was blind, I've always had to sell. So, second paragraph: When you're hiring someone for this job, do you want to hire somebody who comes in and works for eight or 10 hours a day, and then just goes home because the job is over, or do you want to truly hire somebody who understands sales for the science and art that it is, and who sells 24 hours a day as a way of life. Sent off the letter. Waited for two weeks, wondering if I'd get a call or an email. Well, no, not an email, not back then. But in late June 19 or May 1989, I got a call. This is Doug Cooper, head of marketing for Articon. We love your letter. Would you come for an interview? And I said sure. Next day we were down there. I was hired and started on july 2, 1989. Love to start on the second of July, or actually the third of July, because then I got the next day off. It was great. So I went to work for them, and we moved from where we were living in Mission Viejo down to Vista, California. The company was in Carlsbad. I began selling to the East Coast, selling our technologies and other technologies, Sun Microsystems products, and so on. And then in 1996, the owner of the company asked me to move to New York for them because we were selling to Wall Street. Michael Hingson  24:37 Wall Street was always good at getting and demanding and getting what they demanded, and they always said, "If you are a manufacturer and you're selling products to us, we want a representative, not an agent, but we want the company in Wall Street Arena to be able to to hold responsible and deal with. So we moved to New York. And I went to work on the 23rd floor of Tower Two of the World Trade Center, and was there for about a year, and then was recruited away by another company, and it wasn't hard because Articon did not figure out how to support a branch operation. So I was recruited away, and then in 1999 I was recruited away by Quantum Corporation, and now we're getting to what Mary asked about. But I needed to give you the background. Hope it was okay. So in 1999, I was hired to open an office for Quantum Corporation on well in New York City. Quantum was a company that made products called tape libraries. They were big boxes that consisted of tape drives and lots of tape cartridges, and you would attach them to computer networks, and then you would use software like one called Veritas, which is still used today. And what you would do is you would back up all of your data over the network into these tape libraries, onto tape cartridges, and then you would take the tape cartridges out and store them off-site. Now I gotta stop and be spiteful because in New Jersey they love to say that they stored them in a town called Mountainside Under a Mountain. You ever see a mountain in northern New Jersey? I came from California where we had mountains that were eight, 910, 1000 feet tall. They didn't even have decent hills, but they still called it a mountain. That was fine, whatever. They still were able to store the tapes in safe places. But the point is that all the data was backed up off-site, which is what they needed to do. We opened the actual office on august 1, 2000. I hired a staff, and we had a staff that came in and and sold, and we also worked with resellers. And in August of 2001, our main distributor Ingram Micro said, "You know, we got a lot of resellers who are selling your products, but they don't really know how to do it. Can we hold some seminars to teach our your reseller partners, our customers, the resellers, how to sell your product? I said, "You bet. We worked it out with the folks at Quantum. David Frank, who was in charge of pricing and distribution, said he wanted to come back to be a part of the seminars, and we set up doing the seminars. The idea was that we would teach them. I would be their main point of contact since I worked and lived there. David would be the person that I or they would contact without with any pricing issues, but I would be the technical point of contact contact. Master's degree in physics helps, and so we set up the seminars. And wouldn't you know it, we set them up to be held on september 11, 2001. The evening before, or the morning of September 11th, about 12:30, Roselle, my guide dog at the time, woke me up. She was very nervous and fidgety. I knew what it was like when she was fidgety. It was usually because it was a thunderstorm. She didn't like thunder, and we went down to my office. And of course, a thunderstorm did happen, and the storm literally came right over our house. I've never been in an environment where bombs went off around me, but I got to say that in this case, the thunder claps were, as I said, literally right over us, and it had to be like what a bomb sounds like going off. Anyway, it went on till about two, and then we went back up and got a couple more hours of sleep, three more hours of sleep. I got up. We went in and got to the office at about 7:40 in the morning on September 11th. As I came to the door, somebody came up with a cart. It turns out it was a guy from the Port Authority cafeteria. Michael Hingson  28:33 We were going to be providing breakfast and snacks for the first and second seminarians. We had seminars going all day, so we went in. I showed him where I wanted to set up everything in the conference room. I went in, got my laptop computer out of my backpack briefcase. I got my PowerPoint projector, and I went into the conference room and set everything up because I was going to be doing a PowerPoint show that day to give people all the information they needed about the ATLP 3000, the ATLP 1000, and so on. Yes, blind people can do PowerPoint, folks. It's not magic. You sighted bigots. So I had a script, and my wife and I had created the script, and I'd used it many times. The script was in Braille. I knew what was on every slide. We put a couple of things in addition on the script. We put all the wording from the slides on the script, and we also put on the script descriptions of the pictures, as well as where the picture would show up on the screen. So I would, for example, when we showed this to other customers around the city, I'd blow their minds because I would be doing the presentation. My sales guys loved it when I went out and did PowerPoint presentations because I could just point over my shoulder. On the left side of your screen, you'll see the ATLP 3000 with 16 cartridge, 16 drives, 326. Cartridges, and you see the label that says Prism Technology. We could hook five of them together. On the right side of your screen, you'll see the ATLP 1000, which was a single unit with 30 cartridges and one tape drive. And people would come up to me afterwards, and they say, "You know, we're ticked at you. I go, "Why? Well, first of all, your presentation was not boring, which usually they are. But second of all, you never turned and looked at the screen. You kept looking at us, even though you were pointing right to where everything was with your laser pointer. We didn't dare fall asleep. We forgot you were blind. And my response was, "You don't get it. My dog was down here taking notes. If you'd fallen asleep, we would have got you anyway. But that was what it was about. My responsibility was to be the leader of that office, and I had to do what anyone else would do. One of the main things that I did was spend hours, days walking around the World Trade Center, learning what the kiosks were in the shopping mall on the first floor, learning where different offices were, consulting with the Port Authority police and the fire prevention people learning what to do in case of an emergency because sometimes I might be in the office all by my little self. There would be nobody else around. I didn't want my staff in the office. I wanted them out selling and working and supporting customers. Not being in the office, of course, they did usually come in at least once a week. And and so I learned never watched The Sopranos, but I got to tell you, I learned more about the Sopranos from all the Italian Americans on my staff who talked about the Sopranos constantly. Bada bing, bada boom, and I learned a whole lot about Tony Soprano without ever watching the show. But the point is that I needed to know all that stuff. I needed to know where the restaurants were. Customers come into the office. Oh, you want to go out to lunch? What kind of food do you want? There's a great deli downstairs called Fine and Shapiro. Let me take you there. How would it have looked if I didn't know how to do that, and I had to say to someone, "You're going to have to let me take your arm and lead me there because I don't know how to get there, and two hours later we're supposed to be negotiating multi-million dollar contracts? No, I needed to know it. I didn't have the luxury, and I don't regard it as a luxury. I regard it as a disability of reading signs. I needed to know all of that stuff. What I didn't realize is that was creating a mindset in me, which I'll talk about in a moment. Michael Hingson  32:15 Anyway, got all the laptop projectors and everything set up. The only thing I knew I didn't know how to do extremely well is to get it exactly aimed right, but about 8o'clock, David Frank came in and I said, "Say, David, this is all set up, but let's aim the projector just exactly where you want it on the screen. And we did have to turn it just a little bit, but not too much. But anyway, at 845, I was in my office and David was with me. We were creating a final list of all the people who were going to be attending the seminars, because the Port Authority police, the security people, needed to know who was coming. There were two ways you could get into the building: either we faxed on letterhead a list of people who were coming on any given day, and then the people coming in would show their photo IDs, and it would be verified against the list. And if they were allowed in, then they would be given a badge that they would put over their neck, and they would carry that, and they could scan barcode and go into the appropriate elevator to come onto our floor, or they'd have to call us every time somebody came in. And I didn't want a lot of phone calls coming in, so we were faxing the list. I was reaching for Letterhead to fax to to print the list on Letterhead when suddenly I heard and felt kind of a muffled thump and a vibration. And then literally, if you any blind people in the room, well, I'll do it anyway. I'm holding up my hand, and what happened was that literally, as I'm now tipping my hand toward you, the building began to tip. We probably moved about 20 feet. The building kept tipping and tipping. David and I said together, "What's going on? I don't know. What's going on? What do you think? Was it an explosion? I said. David said, "Didn't sound like it. Is it an earthquake? David was from New York, and now he's living in California. He didn't know about earthquakes. I said, "No, the building wasn't shaking around. It was going in one direction. And finally, and I went over and I stood in the doorway between my office and the the outside lobby of our our offices, and I stood there. Roselle was asleep under my desk. David was just on the other side of my desk, holding it near our windows, looking out over Manhattan, the south side of Manhattan. And finally, David and I both said goodbye to each other because we thought we had moved so far that the building was going to take a 78 floor plunge to the street. And then the building slowed down, and it stopped, and it moved back. As soon as it got vertical, I started walking back into the office. I met Roselle coming around from under my desk. I took her leash. I said "heel, which meant to come around behind me to sit and lie down, which is what I would normally have Alamo do, but he's comfortable, so we'll just leave him there. Roselle sat down, and about that time. The building dropped straight down about six feet. Why did it drop down? Because tall buildings like that literally are springs. They're made to flex in windstorms and other things like that. An Empire, an airplane hit the Empire State Building in the 1940s because it got lost in a fog bank. Tall buildings are flexible. They have expansion joints, and when the building was hit, the expansion joints took up all of the the things that were going on. And then when the building got straight again, the expansion joints dropped back down to their normal configuration. I knew that because I had talked to people about stuff like that. I'd forgotten it until later, but I knew it. What I hadn't realized is that what was happening when I was learning so much stuff was that a mindset was being developed in me that said, "You know what to do in an emergency. And as soon as the building dropped, David turned and looked out the window and started shouting, "Oh my God, Mike! There's fire and smoke over us! There were millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside the windows. Michael Hingson  35:59 We got to get out of here right now! Slow down, David. No, we got to get out of here. The building's on fire. I could hear things rushing and brushing outside our windows, and now I knew what they were. David told me millions of pieces of burning paper, right? And I didn't smell any smoke. Roselle wasn't doing anything to indicate any concern, and David kept saying, "We got to get out of here. The building's on fire. And I kept saying, "Slow down. Our guests began to scream. We had like five or six who were in our conference room. Early arrivals. They started coming out, but then they heard me say, "Slow down, stop, David. Just wait. And they waited to see what was going to happen. And finally, David used the big line: "You don't understand. You can't see Speaker 4  36:37 it. The Michael Hingson  36:38 problem wasn't what I wasn't seeing, the problem was what David wasn't seeing-a dog sitting next to me, wagging her tail, yawning, going, "Who the heck woke me up? I was comfy, not giving any indication of fear. And I eventually got David to focus, and I said, "David, get our guests to the stairs. Don't let them take the elevators, because I knew if there's fire, especially because if there's fire, the elevators could become fire traps. The fire could get into the elevator shafts, which it did, and anybody in the cars would be burned. David left with our guests, got them to the stairs. Meanwhile, I called Karen and told her that there had been an explosion or something. We had no clue. There was no way to know. I love it. Reporters, even today, and other people say, "Well, of course you didn't know you couldn't see it. Excuse me, you numbskulls. The last time I checked, Superman and X-ray vision were fiction, and the airplane hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building. No one knew. All the way down the stairs, we didn't know because no one saw it. No one knew. Anyway, I called and told Karen she wanted to know more. I said, "I don't know anything else. I've got to go because we're not staying here. We knew instantly that we had to leave, but we got our guests out. Then David came back. We swept the offices one last time. Went to the stairs and we started down. If I knew it was the last time I was going to be in the building, I would have taken a couple of things that I didn't take. Like I had a really neat talking scientific calculator that I couldn't replace. And if I had known that I wasn't coming back, I would have taken it. It would have been a little heavier, but I would have taken it anyway. We started down the stairs. There were other people, of course, on the stairs. We got down about four floors, and I was smelling an odor. I couldn't quite figure it out, and suddenly I realized I'm smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. I traveled 100,000 miles a year for my company. I knew what the odor of jet fuel was like. I knew the kerosene smell, but it took a while to associate it with the World Trade Center because no one would have ever thought you would have smelled it there. When I realized what it was, I observed to the other people around me on the stairs, "I'm smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. And they said, "Yeah, you're right. That's what it is. We must have been hit by an airplane. You understand? Nobody knew. We must have been hit because of what we're smelling, so we all accepted that that was what was going on, but we had no clue. We continued down the stairs, about 10 floors down. At one point, a woman stopped right behind me, and she said, "I can't go on. I can't breathe. We're not going to make it out. And I stopped and turned around and said, "Sure, we are. Come on, this is my guide dog Roselle. He's guiding me, and and she'll encourage you. Roselle gave her kisses, and this lady gave Roselle a few pets, and so on. And other people surrounded her, and we had a group hug, and the lady was able to keep going. A few burn victims passed us on the stairs as we went down. At about the 50th floor, David, who had gotten a little quiet. Suddenly said, "Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. Now you heard that I have a teaching credential. What you don't know, and teachers won't generally acknowledge it, but I'm going to tell you anyway. There's a secret class we take called Voice 101: How to Yell at Students. Didn't know that, did you? And anyway, as soon as David. Said Mike, "We're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. I just said as sharply and with a snap into my voice that I could, "Stop it, David! If Rosella and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And David told me later that that brought him out of his funk. Michael Hingson  40:12 What he then said is, "I got to keep my mind off this. I want to walk a floor below you and shout up to you what I see on the stairs. Is that okay? And I said, sure. Did I really need him to do that? No. Did it matter? No, but it did to David. However, what I came to realize over time was, David doing that was one of the most important things that I experienced on that day. So I'm going down the stairs. I get to floor 49. David, I'm on the 48th floor. All's clear here, Mike. Going on down. I get to 48 floor, 47. We keep going down. Finally, I get to the 45th floor, David. I'm on the 44th floor. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is. Not stopping. So David was obviously doing better, and he kept going down. Why do I say what I did about David and doing that? Because David became a focal point for anyone within the sound of his voice who could hear him say, "43rd floor, all's clear, everything is good. He had to have helped 1000s of people stay focused and not panic going down the stairs, and I think that was so cool that he did that all the way down 42nd floor, all good. We kept going down the stairs. We met firefighters on the 30th floor. They wanted to escort me down, and I finally convinced them that I was capable of going down without them. And I did it by playing the sight card. I said, "Look, my friend David is here. He can see we're good, and the firefighters let us go. I didn't want them to escort me. First of all, they don't know how to work with a blind guy and do sighted guide. But second of all, I didn't want to break up their team because I knew that each of those people were carrying the equipment that they had to use to fight the fire. You couldn't store it somewhere. Where would you store it? Oh, the 34th floor. And what happens if a fire broke out on the 33rd floor, you couldn't get to it. You had to carry the equipment, so we kept going down the stairs. Finally, got to the first floor. David got there, and I was at floor two. And he said, "Hey, there are water sprinklers running. You're going to have to run through a waterfall or a down torrent of water to get out of the stairwell. Why was there all that water? Because it wanted to keep fire either in or out of the stairs, if fire was around. David ran through. Then I got to the bottom. Roselle stood there, and I picked up her harness and said, "Rosel, forward, hop up, which is a command to speed up. We went through this torrential downpour. It was a waterfall, and we came out the other side, soaking. David was there, and there were voices. Hey, don't go outside! No, no, don't go that way. Go this way. A PA system, a guy on a bullhorn. No, no, no! Don't go outside. Don't go to the outside. Go this way. What we didn't know is, if they had let people go out, they might have been right below where people were jumping. And so that was one of the reasons they didn't want anyone out. They wanted people to go through the complex and get out at the far side, as far away from where everything was occurring that they could. This guy comes up to us and he goes, "I'm with the FBI. I'll get you where you need to go. And of course, I'm sitting there with my warped sense of humor, going, "I'm sorry, I only talked to McGarrett, and I didn't do it. I'm innocent. I just thought that I didn't say any of it out loud. Anyway, he got us through out to the outside of Tower One. We passed now the empty Ben and Jerry's ice cream kiosk that was there. Darn didn't get a chance for a scoop. Kept going. Finally, went up an escalator and got outside into the sunshine outside of Tower. Well, of the whole complex, as far away from the towers as we could be, we got outside. Michael Hingson  43:44 We were told to leave the area, but David looked around and he said, "Mike, I see fire in Tower Two. And I said, "What are you talking about? There's fire in Tower Two, really? What's that all about? We didn't feel a thing going down. We were in our own little cocoon, our own little cave. We had no clue. Anyway, we were told to leave, so we went to Broadway. We walked across the plaza to Broadway, turn left, going now north on Broadway. There was a building on my left. Broadway was on my right. We crossed several streets, crossed Fulton Street, finally got to Vetsy Street. David said, "I want to stop because I can see the fire in Tower Two really clearly from here, I want to take some pictures, and I said, "Great, I'll try to call my wife. I got out my phone. David was taking pictures, which I have today. I tried to call Karen. I couldn't get through. Later, of course, we learned that people were saying goodbye to loved ones, and that was why the circuits were busy. I had just put my phone away, and a police officer, and while David was putting his camera away, and a police officer yelled out of here! It's coming down now. We heard this rumble that became this deafening roar. I describe it as kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. You could hear glass breaking and tinkling, and metal crashing down, and then this white noise sound as Tower Two, 100 yards away from. Pancake down. Everyone turned and ran. David ran. He was gone. I literally lifted Roselle by the harness, turned her 180 degrees, and started running back the way we came. And the first thing I remember saying in my mind was, "God, I cannot believe that you got us out of a building just to have it fall on us. And as soon as I thought that, I heard in my head as clearly as you hear me now, a voice that said, "Don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. Who is God? Absolutely no question. Don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. And so I also had this incredible sense of peace and calm that came over me. That said, you're okay if you work together. We kept running. We got back to Fulton Street, turned right on Fulton Street, and ran about 25 yards. And suddenly we caught up to David, who had apparently gone the same way. And David suddenly realized that he had left us behind and he was going to come back, but we caught up to him first, and he apologized. I said, "David, don't worry about it. Let's just keep going. The building's coming down, you know. And we both just started to run with Roselle, and suddenly we were engulfed in all the dirt and debris and the dust cloud from Tower Two. It was so thick that David said he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his face, and all I can tell you is that every breath I took, I felt dirt and debris and junk going down my throat into my stomach, and we knew we had to get out of that. So I started telling Roselle, "Go right, right. There was a building on our right side, and I wanted her to find the nearest opening if she could even hear me, see my hand signals, or whatever. And I was also listening for openings. Yes, I can hear when I pass an opening, and I and I can tell it's there and deal with it accordingly. Like during a time when you're running away from a collapsing building, run into it. Suddenly, I heard an opening on the right, and Roselle must have known what I wanted. She must have been able to see my hand signals or something because she turned right, she took one step, she stopped, and she would not move. Come on, Roselle, keep going. She wouldn't move. Come on, Roselle. Nope, wouldn't do it. And I realized, focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. So I stuck out a foot. Michael Hingson  47:13 I trailed a hand along a wall, and realized that we were at the top of a flight of stairs. Roselle had done exactly what she was supposed to do, and I knew what I was supposed to do if I wanted to get her to move. But before I did that, I gave her a big hug, good girl, and then I said, "Roselle, forward! That's the command. And we went down the stairs into an arcade area that was the entrance to the Fulton Street subway station. There were a few other people down there. Then a guy came up from the subway system and saw about eight or nine of us there. He introduced himself as Lou, an employee of the subway system, and he took us down to an employee locker room where we could sit down and and kind of hack and cough and get the dust out of our lungs. There was a water fountain and there were fans. We were there about 10 minutes. Then a police officer came, and he said, "You got to get out of here right now. The air's clear up above. You can't stay here. And so we followed him. Of course, he probably had already been told that Tower One was going to collapse. the The officials knew that each building was going to collapse probably about a half hour before it actually did. At least that was their presumption, and that's what I've been told. Anyway, we followed him back up the stairs, through the arcade, up the last two flights of stairs. We got outside. David looked around and he goes, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no Tower Two anymore. And I said, "What do you see? And he said, "All I see are pillars of smoke, hundreds of feet tall. We stood there for a moment, and then we just turned, and we kept walking. Now west on Fulton Street, we walked about 10 minutes, and we were in this little plaza area when we heard that freight train waterfall sound again, and we knew it must be our tower collapsing. We saw a little retaining wall David did, and we got behind it and ducked down, and we waited until everything stopped, and then we stood back up. And David looked around and he said, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no World Trade Center anymore. And I said, "What do you see? And he said, "I just see fingers of fire and flame, hundreds of feet tall. We see, I see pillars of smoke. It's gone. Are you sure? Yeah, it's gone. It's not there. We stood there a moment, then I tried to call my wife Karen again. That was kind of my first thought. I need to tell her we're okay. This time I did get through because clearly the circuits were were free. And after some tears on both sides of the phone, she is the one who told us how two aircraft had deliberately been hijacked and crashed into the towers, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth at that time was still missing over Pennsylvania. Who would have thought? We spent the rest of that day getting up toward Midtown Manhattan, and eventually I got to Penn Station, learned that the trains were running, and went back. Out to New Jersey, David wanted to go back up to be with his sister, who he who he was staying with. She lived on the Upper East Side, so I got on trains and I went back over toward New Jersey. I called Karen and told her what was going on, and a friend of ours, a friend that Karen had known since high school out in California, Tom Painter, was also living in New Jersey, he had come down to be with her, not even knowing at the time whether I was in the World Trade Center or working from home that day or whatever. But he drove her to the station in our accessible van, and as I came off the train, I heard the van show up. I went downstairs, climbed and went up the ramp into the van, and got to hug Karen about 7o'clock that night, for the first time since leaving home, we got home. Tom drove us home. We all went inside. I was going to take Roselle outside because she hadn't been out since like five that morning. Michael Hingson  50:53 Well, I take that back about six that morning, and I took her harness off. But before I could do anything else, she was off like a shot. She went to her toy box, found her favorite tug bone, and started playing tug of war with my retired guide dog Linny. Why? Because it was over for her. And I talked to the guide dog people later, and I said, "Will any of this affect her? And they said, "Was she threatened? Did anything hit her or injure her in any way, and I said no. They said then no. It was over for her because dogs don't do what if. It was over. It was done. She was fine. Lesson to be learned. Lesson you will learn more about if you buy our new book, Live Like a Guide Dog: True Stories from a Blind Man and His Guide his dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity, and walking in faith. That that book is available for pre-order, and I've been signing bookmarks all day. I still even have a few with me. But the point is, you can pre-order it, and and it's about something that I learned later. I thought about during the pandemic. I've talked a lot about escaping and not being afraid because I developed a mindset that said you know what to do, but what I've not done is to teach others how they can learn to recognize that fear is not something that needs to blind or overwhelm you. You can use fear as a very powerful tool to guide you and steer you in the right direction if you know how to control it, and live like a guide dog is all about that. So I hope that you'll all get that when it comes out in August. But again, you can pre-order it now if you go to michaelhinkston.com. There's a link there where you can go to a web page to get information and to go to a link where you can pre-order it. And like I said, I have some bookmarked with a QR code on it, and and I'm and I yes I am plugging the book, but I'm also saying, look, folks, the bottom line is we operate in so many ways with misconceptions about things. I've talked about blindness. Anybody could have been in the World Trade Center, and and a lot of people were. The reality is, though, if you learn what to do and how to prepare for situations in general, when it becomes something specific, you'll know what to do. People have asked a number of times, "Well, wasn't your guide dog trained to operate in an emergency like the World Trade Center? How are we going to do that? No, the dog isn't trained to do that. The guide dog's job is not to lead. Guide dogs do not lead blind people. Guide dogs' jobs are to make sure that we walk safe. It's my job to know where to go and how to get there to give the dog direction. The dog depends and relies on me to give it direction. The dog's job, as I said, is to make sure we walk safely. It's a team effort. We each have a job to do, and we develop a trusting relationship when we learn to trust each other and respect the job the other member of the team is doing, which is what it's all about. Which is what happens on any team, trust is all around us. Trust is under attack in so many ways from our politicians, and in so many ways. But the reality is, trust is all around us. I think we all trust that the roof isn't going to fall in on the church. I think that we trust that the PA system is going to continue to work, and so on. Trust is all around us. The difference between dogs and people is that dogs, while they do love unconditionally, do not trust unconditionally. But dogs are open to trust unless some incredibly traumatic thing has happened to them where they lose that ability. But dogs are open to trust, dogs want humans to give them direction to establish rules, and all too often with our pets and so on, we don't do that. We don't really develop the relationship that we should and can with them. Michael Hingson  54:54 If we would, we would have so much stronger bond and relationships with them. It would be. Amazing for for all of us, but the bottom line is that's the relationship that I get with each guide dog. That's the relationship I have with Alamo. He trusts that I am going to feed him before too awfully long. He trusts that you guys are going to buy books, so he'll have kibbles for me to feed him. Just saying, but but seriously, the the trust has to be earned with a dog or with people or whatever, and if you find that you you discover you can't trust someone, don't wish them ill will, forgive them and move on. So you don't trust them, but you know what you have, and you go off and make new friends and learn other trusting relationships that you can develop. Focus on running with Roselle; the rest will take care of itself. The reality is, we worry so much about so many things. We are always doing what if we create most of the fears that we face in our lives, and we Don't need to do that. If we would focus on just the things that we have some control over and leave the rest alone, well, we might want to be aware of them, but we don't have to worry about them. We don't have control over them. Trust and deal with the things that you have to deal with, and let the rest take care of itself. And that was what I learned on September 11th, listening to the voice of God, absolutely, and that is something that I pass on to all of you, and I think that's the most important thing that I can leave you with. Hi again, everyone. This is Mike Hingson. I hope that you found that speech to be helpful and relevant and interesting. I hope that you learn some things from it. From a personal standpoint, I hope that you learn that blindness isn't really the big problem that I face. The challenge that I face really comes from the fact that people who have eyesight tend to believe that blind people are not capable of doing much because they can't see. Wrong thing to believe. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that because we did it during the speech, but I just wanted to thank you for being here today, for listening and watching this episode. I hope that you will also tune in for our episode on Tuesday, where I'm in conversation with Michelle Abraham on next Friday, the 11th of September, that you will tune in to hear the conversation with Bob Ellis, and then episode 475, which will occur on the 15th of September, where we will talk about lessons to be learned and and give you some things to hopefully take away that maybe you haven't thought about. Thanks very much for being here with us. I really very much appreciate all of your support. If any of you have any questions or want to reach out to me, you are welcome to do so. Please feel free to email me at speaker@michaelhinkson.com. That's s p e a k e r at m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com speaker@michaelhingson.com hope to hear from you and as you gather I do speak I continue to speak publicly I've been a keynote speaker since September 11 if anybody knows of anyone that needs a keynote speaker or you can use us in events that you have please reach out to me at speaker@michaelhingson.com let's talk about it. Let's see how we can help. I'm always looking for ways to inspire, but also to teach and help. And I'd like to be part of your world in that regard. Thanks again for being here. Thanks for listening, and come back next time for another episode of Unstoppable Mindset.

What happens when you finally understand yourself after decades of feeling different? I sit down with Randi-Lee Bowslaugh as she shares her journey through autism diagnosis, mental health struggles, and loss, and how she turned those experiences into writing, advocacy, and purpose. You will hear how she navigated depression, chronic pain, and family trauma while raising a daughter with autism, and why self-advocacy became her most powerful tool. I believe you will find this conversation both honest and encouraging as it shows how understanding your story can help you move forward with strength and clarity. Highlights: 00:01:35 – Discover how early signs of autism can be missed in childhood 00:06:54 – Understand how chronic pain and fibromyalgia impact daily life 00:08:23 – Learn what a late autism diagnosis reveals about identity 00:12:54 – Discover why autism appears to be increasing but isn't 00:35:18 – Learn the real challenges of raising a child with autism 00:58:26 – Discover why self-advocacy is the most important skill to build Bottom of Form About the Guest: Randi-Lee was born and raised in Ontario, Canada and from a young age she had a passion for helping others. She attended Niagara College and graduated at the top of her class from Community and Justice Services, after completing her placement at a recovery house for alcohol and drug addictions. Post-graduation she worked at a Native Friendship Centre for two and a half years while pursuing a university education in psychology. Randi-Lee continued working in social services for another four years as an employment counselor until she left to pursue her other passions. Randi-Lee is an author and outspoken advocate for mental health sharing her true story with honesty. From the age of 14 she struggled with depressive thoughts. There were times in her life that she wasn't sure how she would continue. Depression continues to be a battle in her life but she is glad that she continues to live. She has spoken at events that promote wellness and compassionately shares her experiences with her own mental health. In 2021 she started a YouTube channel, Write or Die Show, to spread awareness about various mental health issues and to end the stigma associated with mental health. Growing up she never felt that she fit in, being the last to understand jokes and confused about many emotions that she saw on others. In 2021 she finally had answers to the questions about herself that had been nagging at her. She was diagnosed with moderate Autism. Another of Randi-Lee's passions is kickboxing, which she did for about 10 years. She was a Canadian National Champion in kickboxing in 2015, competed at the World's Kickboxing tournament later that year and 2016 competed at the Pan-Am Games, where she received silver in her division. In 2020 she was chosen as one of the coaches for the Ontario Winter Games where she inspired and coached young athletes. Randi is a mom to two; her youngest child has autism and she is a grandma to one. Randi encourages and supports her youngest child's entrepreneurial spirit as he follows his dream of being an artist. When she can, she incorporates his art into her stories. Ways to connect with Randi-Lee: Websites: http://www.rbwriting.ca My Books https://amzn.to/3LNbuCy Write or Die: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTmVQUW8K8r1sBDchLyTwA?sub_confirmation=1 What I'm Reading https://open.spotify.com/show/4kMt8h95cfD3idamZ5LJZK?si=189fc2f901124993 Merch Store https://write-or-die-show.creator-spring.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rbwriting Instagram https://www.instagram.com/randileebowslaugh TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@randileebowslaugh SubStack https://randileebowslaugh.substack.com/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! 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Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson  00:04 What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe Welcome to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. I'm your host. Michael hingson, speaker, author and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head on and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear, together, we focus on mindset resilience and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Hi everyone. I am Michael Hingson, the host of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet today. Which one do we get mostly unexpected? Which is anything that doesn't directly have to do with inclusion or diversity, but you never know where we might go with it all. So we'll see anyway. Our guest today is Randy Lee Bowslaugh, who actually was on our podcast well now years ago, as a result of one of the pot of Palooza episodes. And we kind of re encountered each other, because we both Sarah publicist Mickey Mickelson, who I sent an announcement to, saying, Tell everybody you record, that you that you serve, that we're always looking for podcast guests. And guess who showed up? There's Randy Lee. So here we are. Yeah, I know, isn't it great? So here we are. And Randy Lee, welcome. Well, we'll call you Randy right to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  01:58 Thanks. I am so glad to come back. And I find it funny that I also, you know, send Mickey the hey, my podcast is looking for guests, and who comes on my show. Will you Michael Hingson  02:11 turn about spare play? Randy is, among other things, an author, and we're going to talk about some of those books and so on. But let's start like I love to do tell us about kind of the early Randy growing up. 02:23 Well, the early Randy back in the day time Michael Hingson  02:27 ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  02:30 Yes, this feels like it now. So I mean growing up, I guess I would say, I would say I was your typical kid, but looking back and knowing what I know now, I was definitely not a typical child. But yeah, I loved the same things both most kids do, playing in the mud and writing. Yep, loved writing at the young age, making movies, all that jazz. And then as I got older into my teen years, that's when, that's when I dealt with some depression that just keeps following me around. Yep. And then graduated high school, went to college, graduated from that couple times. How come? A couple times? Well, I took the first program I took. It was called pre community services. So by the time I had to actually apply to college, it was like two months before college would start. There wasn't a lot of options left open. So I kind of picked something that I'm like, Okay, it's still open. Looks kind of interesting. So I went with that, but it was just like a one year certificate program. And so from that, I was like, hey, I need to figure out a real program to take. So I looked around and I found one that had a lot of similar classes, because they didn't want to do a lot of repeat of stuff. So I took community and Justice Services, which was a lot of fun. Never thought that was going to be what I took, but I did from there. Learned psychology was amazing, so I took some university psychology and got into social service work for a few years before I was like, oh my goodness, the amount of governmental red tape. Here I am out, Michael Hingson  04:16 and we should explain Randy is from Canada. Yes, originally Toronto, right. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  04:22 No, Toronto's about, no, Toronto's about two hours north of me. What town I am in? Michael Hingson  04:31 Welland. Welland, okay, is that? But that where you're from originally? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  04:35 Well, I grew up in St Catherine's, which is still the same region as well, and so well and is part of how many we got 12 municipalities, something like that, called the Niagara region. And we encompassed Niagara Michael Hingson  04:49 Falls, got it. So anyway, you You went off and did this other program in college. Then what did you do? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  05:01 So from there, I was like, I'm going to be a probation officer. That's what I decided I was going to be. But at that time, you needed to have a bachelor's degree. So I started doing University and of course, by the time I was burnt out from social services, they had changed, and you didn't need a bachelor degree anymore, but I was over it, and I didn't want to do it anymore. Yeah, awesome, awesome. So I worked, I worked as an employment counselor at two different spots for a total of, I want to say, around six ish years, give or take, before, yeah, before I burnt out and went, Oh, my goodness, I am done with social services. Through like government agencies, I can do a lot more help. And just talking to people about my story or writing about it, I can be a lot more useful. Yeah. So, yeah, I stopped. I quit there at that time, I also had cancer. So that's fun, no fun, right? It was, it was not a good time at all. But you can ask me more about that after one train of thought at a time, or else I'll get totally distracted. So from there, I was actually a personal trainer. Had my own little business for a while there doing personal training and kickboxing, because I was competing, competing in kickboxing. 06:28 Tell me about I'm I don't know much about kickboxing. Tell me about that. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  06:33 Yeah, so I started doing that. Oh, many moons ago. Now it feels like and what is it exactly? It is kicking and punching people. Well, okay, yep, all right, now we know the kind of person you are. Okay, exactly. There's different styles. So, like, there's depending what style of it you do is going to depend on the rules, but basically, you're kicking and punching people in the front of their body, from the knees up to the head. Got it basically, for the most part. There. There's a few variations of rules depending if you're doing like k1 or low kick or whatever. So yeah, that was that was awesome. I competed nationally a couple times. I went to worlds. I went to the pan Americans. It was so much fun. I keep telling my husband, one day I'm going to do it again, and he keeps telling me to remember that my body is broken now. It's broken now. Yeah, it's a few years ago, probably, I guess it would have been around 2022 when covid started to release its hold on Canada, because we took forever, I started getting all these aches and pains, and there were days that I literally couldn't get myself up off the ground. It was, it was ridiculous. So lots of doctor's appointments, lots of testing, and so there is arthritis in both my sacroiliac joints, which are pretty important when you're kickboxing, because that's your hips, and that's how you move. So really hard. When the doctors tell you don't, don't, you know, jostle those more because, you know, that's where it already is. And I'm like, oh, cool, cool. And then, and then Fibromyalgia was the other diagnosis they gave me. So there's just days that I don't really want to move much I've been getting for the past year and a half now, been getting nerve ablation. So that is basically when they stick really long needles into your spine, like between your vertebraes, into your nerves, and they burn them so that they don't send pain signals to your brain. Yeah, that's, that's the easy version Michael Hingson  08:49 of it. Well, maybe with all this pain, it's time to go into chess, right? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  08:53 I mean, I, I was in chess club in grade eight. I know how to play it. I'm good at it anymore. Michael Hingson  09:01 Well, well anyway, as I recall, you got diagnosed with autism also, right? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  09:09 Yes, I did. So remember I was like, Hey, I thought I was a typical kid, but really I was not. That explains it. I was. How was it manifested? Michael Hingson  09:19 How do you manifest that it was different and you weren't really typical, even though you thought you were Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  09:24 well, I feel like first when, when you're living it and people aren't telling you different, you don't realize that anything is different. Because I did well enough at school. I had some friends, but where I went to school, specifically, it was very small school, and there was like five girls in my class, so basically you were all forced to just be friends with each other. And it wasn't until, as we got older and they started, I remember this one year, I think it was like grade five, and they're all talking about having dates to the Fun Fair, which is just like a. Little carnival, and they all want to have dates. And I'm like, why? I don't why. But it was things like that where I was like, as I got older, you could kind of see more, but when I was younger, manifested a lot in sensory overload. That ended up in meltdowns and yelling and screaming and people telling my mom, oh, you need to discipline her more. She's just spoiled. My mom's like, I didn't tell her no, so I don't know what you're talking about. Michael Hingson  10:29 So how old were you when you were finally properly diagnosed? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  10:35 I'm 38 now. I'm gonna say 3233 Michael Hingson  10:41 interesting, pretty recent. I've talked to a number of people on this podcast who were diagnosed as being on on the autism spectrum, if you will, or having autism in their adult lives. And they they kind of a lot of them say, well, we noticed that there was something different about me, but I didn't know what it was, and they were very uncomfortable, but eventually realized that, well, not realized, but discovered through diagnosis, that they had autism. And you know, obviously the part of the issue is we're better at it now than we used to be. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  11:20 Yes, that is a huge part. I will say I totally have those same feelings more as a teenager, the older I got, the further away from your typical teenager, and the more I could tell I didn't really fit in, right, like I didn't understand their little inside jokes. I didn't understand again, the whole dating thing. So things like that where you're like, well, you're 15, you should be going out doing that. I'm like, Can I just stay home and go to bed? I'm in bed by 10. Why would I go out? I have a routine, and that's not typical of a teenager. So I definitely felt it more the older I got, as opposed to when I was really little. And I think a big thing with the late diagnosis is it happens a lot more with females. A lot of what, yeah, a lot of what they like, researched and stuff. When autism first became a thing, it was all in boys. So all the research and all their kind of stuff is all based around how a boy would show it. So boys are more likely to rock back and forth, say as their STEM, whereas girls were more likely to maybe. So I have a little piece of Lego here that I'm playing with. We're more likely to do things that are more easily hidden. So we're still doing the same thing, but we're doing it in a smaller way so that, you know, it's not as noticeable. And people are like, Okay, well, that's, that's not big, so that's not a big deal. And girls are also more likely to, you know, a feminine quality is being quiet and staying to yourself. So when girls are just quiet and reserved, well, that's just feminine. So you're fine not Oh, you don't know how to interact in the social situation, so you don't want to talk like you don't know what to say. You are confused, right? It's perceived very differently, Michael Hingson  13:17 yeah, and I have heard that before from from from people. I didn't know it, but I've heard it from several people on this podcast, and I appreciate it, and it's important to know but, but I think that people keep talking about how autism is on the increase, and I wonder how much that really is true, as opposed to how much better we are at diagnosing it now, Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  13:41 I think that's exactly what it is, is we're better at diagnosing it. I don't think it's necessarily on an increase. I think it's always been there. Because, like, I really should have been diagnosed back in the 90s, yeah, right. Like everybody my age who's getting diagnosed now would have been diagnosed in the 90s, but they weren't as good at it. They didn't know what to look for, and so now that we they know more what to look for, and we can a lot of times articulate for ourselves, like when they're asking me then the psychologist was asking me the questions I can articulate for myself, what I was like, how I felt, how I learned to figure out how To cope. Because by the time you're older, you've learned ways to just figure it out. You've had no choice. Doesn't mean it's been easy, but you've had no choice but to figure it out. Michael Hingson  14:29 I realize it's not the same, but conceptually, people who happen to have dyslexia are the same sort of thing. They've got to figure it out, and they do, and many of them do, even though they have this thing where the brain doesn't necessarily accurately communicate what or cape or easily communicate what the eye is seeing and recognize it, so people learn to deal with it and to cope. But, but, yeah, it is one of those things. That we have to deal with exactly. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  15:03 And I was interviewing somebody on my show a little bit ago, and they were dyslexic, and that's what they said. They said, You know, I learned to deal with it because I didn't know she was older than me, so she would have been in school, I want to say, maybe in the 60s, 70s, something like that. And so you just didn't complain, right? You didn't You didn't talk back, you didn't complain. You just figured it out. And so that's what she did, until later, when finally, I think I want to say maybe she was in college, and she finally told a professor, and they're like, you might have dyslexia, and that would explain a lot. It's like, Oh, wow. Michael Hingson  15:44 Well, and again, it wasn't something that people understood until later as well. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  15:50 Exactly. I know I remember when my kid was in kindergarten, she's she's going to be 19 next week, but it was all about phonics. That's how they were teaching the kids to learn. They weren't teaching them any other way. They were doing phonics. So they sent all the phonics books home, and she could not grasp it, not not because of dyslexia, I don't think, but she could not grasp, like, phonetically, what things sounded like. So we had to come up with a different way. And she was later diagnosed with, like, a reading writing disability. But they didn't name any one specific one, but she still, now at 19, struggles with words, especially those crazy words like knife. Why does it start with a K, things like that that she just, she just has to find different ways to go about it. And luckily that, you know, talk to text now is a lot better than Michael Hingson  16:45 it used to be. Yeah, yeah. Voice recognition is really pretty good these days, which helps a lot. Now, is she diagnosed also with autism? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  16:55 Yes, she was diagnosed when she was eight. Michael Hingson  16:58 So that must have been interesting, and certainly in a lot of ways a blessing, because she learned about it earlier, and also for you, because then you could start to and you have some some other aspects of it that make it easier for you to understand, but that made it more possible for you to help her. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  17:19 Yeah, so she was diagnosed before I was it was actually I came out of my room one day a tooth Mom, if I have dyslexia or sorry if I have autism, I got it from you. I go, huh? Yeah, you probably did, and that's what prompted me to go and actually find out. But yeah, being able to get diagnosed earlier gives them the best opportunity to go and get support once we had that, you know, diagnosis on paper, the school was like, Oh, we can do this now. We could do that now. Whereas before they're like, she's just being bad, we're sending her home. Michael Hingson  17:57 What do you think about all these people who keep saying that it's all caused by vaccinations. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  18:04 Well, number one, so load of hooey. There's no actual scientific research. Number two, if I had to choose my kid living in an iron lung or being autistic, I would pick being autistic. Uh huh. So I mean, what? What's worse being autistic or being in an iron lung or dead? Michael Hingson  18:27 Yeah, I'd rather not be dead. And I'd rather not be in an iron lung or on a respirator all the time, exactly. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  18:37 I mean, vaccinations absolutely don't cause it, but if they did for some strange reason, I still would choose to vaccinate, because I still would want my kid to live Michael Hingson  18:49 back when I was born. It was not accepted by medical science that if you were born prematurely and put in an incubator, that you could go blind because your retinas wouldn't properly form. It had been actually proposed, though, by one person at the Wilmer Eye Institute in Johns Hopkins University, but medical science wouldn't accept it. They they kept saying, too much oxygen is never a bad thing. Well, it is actually, and today, you still can become blind what's now called retinopathy or prematurity. Back when I was born, it was called retro lentral fibroplasia. I like that much better, but retinopathy or prematurity, but today, medical science accepts it. So if there's a premature baby, and they have to put it in a pure or, well basically a pure oxygen environment. At least they know what they're dealing with, and the parents are warned. But also, incidents of the blindness are a lot less in part, because you don't have to give a child a pure oxygen environment. For 24 hours a day. You can even not do it for a short period of time every day, and the incidence of blindness goes down to zero. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  20:09 Wow. I did not know that, though, so interesting. Michael Hingson  20:12 But when I was born, you were put in an incubator, and it was pure oxygen environment, and that is what caused my blindness and the blindness in so many other children who were born prematurely back in the baby boomer era, that the average age of blind people in the country actually, well, dropped from 67 to 65 years of age. That's how many premature kids were born who became blind. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  20:40 Wow, isn't it interesting how far along science has come? I find it so interesting when I look back, because I always like to say, in all reality, medicine is just a baby, right? Like the big breakthroughs really didn't come till the 1900s when things were being more discovered. And that's that's very recent in the grand scheme of history of everything. So I find it, yeah, it's intriguing. And we're Michael Hingson  21:13 still learning a lot, and still so much to learn. Medicine still is very much a baby in so many ways. There's so many things that we are learning about but don't really know totally Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  21:24 yet, by any standard, exactly like they don't know what actually causes autism, they have ideas, but they don't know. And even, like fibromyalgia, there's, you know, these two factions of people that say that's just because they gave up. They don't, they don't know what's wrong with you, so they just give you that label, sort of, but it is a real thing. So just because they don't know what causes it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. What it just means, pain, lots of pain, okay? I mean, there's other things, but my biggest thing is just pain all over body, pain and you just It hurts to move so, Michael Hingson  22:09 so getting a hammer and sticking your thumb out and then hitting your thumb with the hammer isn't going to really make that much of a difference. No, feel pain all over anyway. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  22:18 Huh? Exactly. That was an idea. I appreciate that. Michael Hingson  22:25 I've had friends with migraines, and I say you want to get rid of the migraine pain. Put your finger down. Get a hammer, hit it. You won't have a migraine anymore. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're too Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  22:34 busy, because your finger hurts too much. I got it exactly. Michael Hingson  22:37 Yeah. No, seriously. The bottom line is that I appreciate that, that all the pain is there, and hopefully those are the kinds of things that at some point we'll learn to deal with and fix, just like cancer, which we still are learning so much about, Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  22:56 exactly right? And that's that's the thing. That's a medicine's a baby, because we're still learning. We still don't know the human body is so intricate. Michael Hingson  23:08 Yeah, well, you, you, you had a lot of depression and depressive thoughts when you were growing up. What was that from? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  23:21 That's a great question. I mean, there definitely were some mitigating factors, but a lot of times, depression doesn't necessarily have a root, like it doesn't have a cause. It just your brain is not firing all of the all the proper channels and proper, happy hormones. My brain is not working right now, but when I was a teenager, there definitely was some issues. I mean, again, talked about not feeling like I belonged. I mean, that's going to put anybody into a horrible mindset, right? You don't feel like you belong. What is wrong with me? Why can't I fit in? Why don't I understand these things? Why don't people like me, right? So that's kind of a spiral on its own. And then at the time, my brother, who was four years older than me, he was in and out of jail, he was doing drugs, and that just caused chaos in the house. And then my my mom's ex husband, he was also an alcoholic, so just lots of chaos. You never knew what to expect. And autism likes to know what to expect. We like routine. We like to know what's going to come so again, all these different layers. But ultimately, I think, you know, I have depression because my brain is not quite wired correctly, and then you add in all those other layers and it just, it makes for a really bad soup. Yeah, not good. Do you Michael Hingson  24:55 still have depression? Sort of, kind of things from time? Do you do? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  24:58 Definitely, time. Yeah. Yeah, so I take antidepressants every day, so they keep me from going really down. So what I like to say, because I actually had a bit of a depression over the summer, because there was just so much chaos in the house we were renovating, which it turned out amazing, but it was just a lot. So I like to say, you know, without the medication, the depression goes, whoo, really far down, like it just, you know, bottoms out with the antidepressants. It, it goes down, but at a manageable level where then you can still, because I've done a lot of therapy, so it goes down, but the antidepressants keep it at a level where you can still go I am going to use one of my coping strategies? Yes, I can do that. Whereas, without the antidepressants, you're so far down, you're like coping strategies don't work. I don't care. They're not going to do anything, right? Michael Hingson  25:51 Well, so you said your brother was in and out of jail and drugs and all that sort of stuff. So whatever happened to him, he died. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  25:59 What are we 2025? 2025, four years ago now? So he drug overdose, drug overdose, yeah, so it was something that I always assumed was going to happen. Because, I mean, when you're living that lifestyle, obviously it wasn't the phone call I wanted to receive. But, I mean, for years, every time there'd be like, a news report about it, I'd look to see if it was his name, because I figured that that's how I was going to find out. Luckily, I got a phone call instead of reading in the newspaper. I guess that was kind of a nice, nicer way to find out. Yeah, so four years ago, back in May. Michael Hingson  26:45 And so now, did your brother, or was he ever diagnosed with autism, or any of those sorts of things, or was it just totally different? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  26:56 He, I want to say he had anxiety. He might have had other stuff too, but he did have an anxiety prescription at one point, I know, because the one nice thing about being in jail is that they do have some supports to try and figure out how to get you healthy and back on the street and not be a re offender. It doesn't always work, but so I know he did have that, and he suffered from panic attacks. I remember the one day I was, I was a teenager, he was maybe 19, and he's having this full blown panic attack. He thought he was having a heart attack kind of thing. And so he called 911, and everything. And they came. They tried, like, no, it's panic attack. So he definitely had stuff going on. He probably also had PTSD from from different things that I'm not necessarily privy to. But, I mean, I know that as a kid, we had a different dad, so I know his dad was kind of a big jerk. My dad was definitely a big jerk to them. So there was, you know, again, layers and layers to them. And a lot of times, people that do drugs or alcohol, they do it to numb the pain of something else. Addiction is usually to numb the pain of something else. And I don't know exactly what those things were, but definitely, I'm going to say some kind of trauma and anxiety. Michael Hingson  28:23 Yeah, understand. Well, it's still a sad thing, and it happens all too often. Yes, I met, we had a family who lived next door to us when we lived after Karen and I got married in Mission Viejo, and they adopted a little girl whose mother was a drug addict, and so she as a child, also was addicted, and it affected her behavior a lot. I haven't heard what happened to her later, but it was pretty uncontrollable. We observed some of it, and, you know, we knew it, and they could talk with us about it, because we understood, but it is, it is sad. Drugs Don't help a lot at all. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  29:09 No Exactly. They numb the pain for that moment. But it's definitely not the correct solution. It's not going to solve the problem, and it's not going to help you in the long run. 29:19 Now, in addition to your brother? Did you have other siblings? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  29:22 I did. I did slash do? So I had two, yes. So I had two sisters, younger sisters. The one died, actually, again by drugs, and she was really sick with, I'm not sure what else, but she went go to the doctor to find out. So she died a year ago, and then I have my baby sister. And my baby sister is still around and doing well, good. Michael Hingson  29:55 Yeah, nice to have somebody else in the family, the sibling i. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  30:00 Yeah, yeah, we're like, 12 years apart, so it's a pretty big gap, but, but it's nice now that she's an adult, it's not, it doesn't feel as big of a gap, right? When you're, she was first born, and I'm, you know, a teeny bopper, and she's, I loved her, you know, you get the babies and you babysit, and you're, oh, this is my little sister, my little doll, and dress her up. But then you get into, like, 1718, and into college, and I'm in college, and I've got my my kid, and I'm trying to do all this college stuff, so I don't have time for doing other stuff. Yeah, so that that was harder to stay connected, because she's just, you know, she was like, 10, and I'm trying to figure out college and a career and all this stuff. So, yeah, it was definitely, it was, yeah, it was definitely tough for a while when you have a huge age gap, but the older you get, the less the age gap matters. 30:54 Yeah. How long you been married? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  30:58 13 years. Yeah, I've been together for 18 years. 31:05 Well, that's a long time, but that, you know, Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  31:08 yeah, as my entire adult life, I always like to say, I'm so glad I never had to date anybody else as an adult, see, Michael Hingson  31:15 and it all works out that way. What does he do? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  31:19 He's a mechanic. Oh, yeah, I love it because it's so expensive. Get your car fixed. Yeah? I go, honey, something spoken, 31:29 yeah, I turned the key and nothing happens, right? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  31:33 I'll call them sometimes they'll be like, Oh, I don't want to forget, but there's this light on. I don't know what it means, but fix it well? Michael Hingson  31:41 And the answer to that is, of course, just watch the Big Bang Theory, the check engine lights on for all 13 or 12 years. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Gosh, but you know it's, it is it is a challenge, and we all have different, different issues now, is your your mom still about? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  32:03 Yes, actually. So my mom broke her hip very recently. Yes, that's actually why we had an original date, and I had to change it because she had broke her hip, so I had to go to the hospital and visit her too much football, huh? Exactly? She, you know, she's just too competitive there. No, she got, they diagnosed her with osteoporosis. I'm like, okay, that makes sense, because you're kind of young for a broken hip, yeah? So she's doing all right now she's around and kicking. So she's, we had to switch is, my mom actually lives with me, and she is on the second floor. My room is on the first floor, so I had to give her my room and my bed, because I love her, yeah, but I can't wait till she can walk up the stairs and I get on my bed 32:51 back so right now she's on the first floor. Yes, yeah. Michael Hingson  32:56 Well, you know, we when we moved to New Jersey. Karen, I think I'd mentioned in the past, is in a wheelchair her whole life, we built an accessible house. So we used we had an elevator that was the only incremental cost to making the house accessible. Because the neat thing about building an accessible home is, if you're building it from scratch, it really doesn't cost anything to build accessibility in like ramps or lower counter wide doorways, but it was in an area where they only, well, everyone had a two story home, so we had to put an elevator. And so let's build into the mortgage, which was okay, so it's a $15,000 incremental cost. That's not that bad. Plus the county engineers made, made it hard to get it done, but we got it in. But still, it actually, although assessors tend not to value those kinds of things, actually the elevator ended up being a great asset when we were selling the house, because a husband and wife, who are both very short, bought the house, and so they love the lower counters, and also the washer and dryer were in a room on the second floor, so that all worked. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  34:12 Well, awesome. Oh, I love that. We just renovated our kitchen and bathroom because the floor was rotting and it just by sheer how we wanted to kind of arrange the cupboards, because before the kitchen's a really big room, but it was not, it was not designed well. It was not very functional. So we kind of we moved things around a little bit, and it's definitely a lot more functional for her now that she has the walker, at least until she's all the way better. She can actually move around the kitchen to get to the bathroom. In the bathroom door, they My house is over 100 years old, so some of the doors and stuff, they're smaller than what they do now. So they widen the door to put in a real size door. Run stuff. I'm like, Oh, this is that's much more convenient for you now. And everybody actually, oh, yeah, it's really great. And we did. We got the all in one washer dryer, which I love, and now it is in the kitchen, and I don't have to worry about taking laundry downstairs on those really bad days when I don't want to move anymore, yeah, and I don't forget to switch it over, because that's one of the biggest problems when you've got autism, is you forget you're doing something. Yeah. And your laundry sits for three days, so you have to wash it again, and it reminds you, so that helps, yep. So now I put it in, it washes, it dries, and then it's done. Michael Hingson  35:39 That's cool. Well, love it. So, so your daughter with autism is, you said 19, Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  35:48 she will be on Tuesday. Michael Hingson  35:49 So what was, what is it like raising a child with autism? You know, you you've learned to deal with it, but, and that must help you in terms of some of the expectations, but what is it like? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  36:03 It's so hard. It's it's definitely hard. Now, I don't really have a typical child to base it off of, because even my older one, like my stepdaughter, I wouldn't say she's typical, but she's definitely not atypical, either, like she's not on the spectrum or anything. So raising the two very different, and I gotta say, with love, it is a battle every day, and you have to the older she gets, the more difficult it becomes, because you're expecting a certain level of maturity by the time they're 19, and that's just not there. And you know, hopefully, hopefully, in 10 years, she will act like she's 19, because right now at 19, she's acting like she's 12 ish, 13 ish. So it definitely helps to remind ourselves that at times, because you just, you want to be like, but you're an adult, like, go and change your clothes. What are you doing? But then you have to stop and go, wait. Okay, we have to break down these steps. We have to, you know, give clearer directions and just reminder, yeah, biggest thing is remind ourselves that she's going to be a little bit harder to deal with sometimes. But a lot of the things that yeah, that I've found that work for me, routine, making notes, those are things that definitely help her and through school. Luckily, she was able to, not so much through school, but through our journey with school and doctors and stuff. She went to it's called CPRI here in Ontario, and she went there for three months way back when, and it helped her a lot. They finally did the psycho educational assessment and the OT assessment, a few other things, so that helped her to understand herself and also us to understand what she needed. Because I hate the whole low functioning, high functioning thing, but she is more severe when it comes to life skills than I am. So in that part, it's tricky, like, I've always been like, you get up and you get dressed. She's like, I get up, but I'm not going anywhere. Why would I get dressed like cuz, yes, stink. So it's just little things like that that are different between her and I. So it's a learning experience, but we make it work for the most part. So has she gone through high school? Yes. So she finished high school. She graduated two I guess it's almost two years ago now, a year and a half, she tried college. It did not go well again. It was it came down to the functional, social aspect of things. It just didn't work well for her. She loved she took baking. She loved doing the baking. She was capable of doing the baking, but she could not fit into the social standards that the college wanted from their students. So it was a disaster. That's putting it lightly, but it did not go well, and so they actually gave her what's called a medical withdrawal so that we could get our tuition back past the like your deadline of getting it back, because it just it wasn't going to work. So she's kind of figuring out what the heck she's going to do. She tried volunteering at the at the cat place that didn't. She said it was too boring. And I'm like, okay, just trying to figure it out. We don't, we don't know where life's gonna lead at this point. Michael Hingson  39:48 Yeah, well, and maybe it's one of those things where you just kind of have to wait and see how it goes exactly. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  39:57 Now that's where we're at. We're at wait and see, and we're. Work on those life skills. Michael Hingson  40:01 Does she have any idea what she wants to do with life? Or it's just Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  40:05 not there yet, not not there yet. She loves doing art, but to do art as like a career, I think would be hard. It's deadlines. So she's done some art for some of my kids books, and they're great, and people love them, but it is. I've had this one kid's book written for two years now, and I'm still waiting on her to finish the artwork, and it's only like 10 pictures, but she just doesn't have a sense of deadline. If she's not, if she's not in the art mood, she just doesn't do it. I'm like, Hey, but I I pay you to do these like I do actually pay her to do them, because I want to incentivize her. I mean, it's good work. I'm selling it so you should get something, but just doesn't, doesn't really matter Michael Hingson  40:53 to her. It doesn't, doesn't really gel yet. Yeah, yeah. Whether it does, remains to be seen. Of course, Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  41:00 exactly what we'll see as we go well. Michael Hingson  41:04 So tell me about the books that you write. What kind of books do you write and what got you started in the writing path? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  41:12 So I write a lot of non fiction. My big thing is always talking about mental illness and autism, and I love sharing that stuff, because that is what I'm passionate about. That's what got me into social services. Realized I could do more with this and talking about it, right? So I write a lot about that, but it's heavy stuff, so I do intersperse like kids books in there, just to lighten my mood, and it's fun. So I do have a few kids books out there, but yeah, a lot is mental health. And I actually did write a book about my brother's death. It's called Goodbye Too Soon, and it got into it because of mental health. So my very first book was a book of poetry. The poems were what I had written as a coping strategy. Didn't even know it was a coping strategy at the time, but as a coping strategy as a teenager dealing with all that. So those got turned into my first book, called thoughts of a wanderer. And then from there, I was like, I love writing, and I just kept going. Michael Hingson  42:21 So how many books have you written so far? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  42:24 I got a count, but I want to say over 10. 42:27 Wow. Are they all non fiction? Or have you written any fiction? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  42:32 I wrote one fiction. It's a collection of short scary stories, well, and the kids books, I guess those are fiction too, but I did a collection of short scary stories a few years ago, because I love horror. Michael Hingson  42:47 Stephen King loves you, huh? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  42:49 He was one of the first authors that I actually read the full book all the way through without complaint. Which book I want to say it was it? Oh, it. Michael Hingson  43:04 He's an interesting writer. I I haven't read much of his lately, but I'm amazed. How do people come up with these things? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  43:15 I, I mean, I have some pretty messed up monsters that I had in my book. I don't know how we do it. We our brains are just just coming up. Yeah, our brains are just wrong. Michael Hingson  43:29 I think the first one of his that I read was The shining and then I read Carrie, and then Salem's Lot, and it went from there. But I've just have always been amazed. How do people come up with these concepts? It's just amazing. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  43:45 Yeah, me, for most of the ones that I wrote came from, I'd be walking the dogs, and I was like, oh, that's an interesting tree. It looks like it has a face. And then all of a sudden, this tree that looks cool became a monster. Like, oh, okay, cool. This is where we went with it. And then some of the other stories. My my kid had drawn pictures, and I'm like, ooh, that picture looks like you're harvesting body parts and you're trying to fix stuff. So this is gonna happens. Do you Michael Hingson  44:18 find that your characters end up writing the books. I've talked to authors, and many have said that, that that the characters really create the stories and they write Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  44:30 the books. Yeah, it's hilarious, because when I first started interviewing other authors, and they would say that, because at the time, I'd only really, really written nonfiction, I'm like, Ha, weird. But as I got going and I started writing the scary stories, or a few other short stories that I haven't published, they're just, I just wrote them. I was like, Huh? The characters really do tell you what's gonna happen. This is weird, Michael Hingson  44:56 and if you don't pay attention, they're gonna get you. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  45:00 Yeah, it is the strangest thing, and I it's a phenomenon I don't know how to explain, but they really do. They come to life in your head and they tell you exactly what's going to Michael Hingson  45:10 happen, yeah, which, which, excuse me, is certainly understandable. It makes for a very interesting world. Needless to say, yeah. So you have other books that are coming out, Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  45:27 not right now, other than that one kids book that I'm waiting for the pictures on. What I'm doing right now actually is I am working on turning my book, Goodbye Too Soon, into a screenplay and into an indie film. Okay, how does that work? That's a great question. I'm in the very early stages. I'm in the very early stages. So I am me and my best friend, because she likes to research. She's doing all the research stuff and figuring out that side of thing. I'm focusing on writing the script right now, so it's going to be interesting. It's going to be a learning curve, and as I figure it out more, I might have to come back and tell you, because I'm not 100% sure yet, but I'm going to figure it out because I think it would be so much fun to do, and because it's such an important topic, it needs to be done. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Michael Hingson  46:25 Do you write basically full time, or do you have an addition a full time job, or anything like, I have Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  46:30 a job to pay the bills. I actually really like my job. So I work. I work in an office, and the girls I work with, they are absolutely amazing. They are the reason I like going to work. They get me out of the house, and I get to talk to other adults, other than like I talked to adults here now, but I get to just get out and refreshed, which sounds weird, that work is refreshing, but it's because of who I work with. They're amazing. Be nice to be able to make enough money to pay all my bills through writing. But again, I think I like the whole being able to leave the house. It's kind of nice. And what kind of job do you have? So I do scheduling. Okay, yeah, I schedule different, different lessons and stuff. What's the company that you work for or the office. Um, I don't know if I'm allowed to say it's not that it's it's not that it's confidential, but I don't know what, what their rules are around their marketing so Michael Hingson  47:31 well, not the company. But I mean, what kind of, what kind of of you said, education? Is it involving schooling? Is it it's driving? Oh, okay, all right, all right. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  47:42 But I work in the office. I do, Michael Hingson  47:43 no, no, that's okay. I don't think I could. Yeah, well, that's another story. I can tell you that my opinion is that it will be a wonderful day when autonomous vehicles get to the point where they truly are reliable and we can take driving out of the hands of drivers. A lot of people will hate me for saying that, but it's still true. I am absolutely convinced that the way they drive here in Victorville, I could drive as well as any of the people out there on the road, right? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  48:13 Yeah, sometimes I wonder, and it gives me a heart attack, because I'm like, Oh my gosh, would you like our business card? I think you need to come do some lessons. Michael Hingson  48:21 Yeah, you tell them. One of my favorite comedians is Bob Newhart. Have you ever heard The Bob Newhart driving instructor? 48:28 I have not. Michael Hingson  48:29 Oh gosh, go find it on YouTube. It's called Bob. It's Bob Newhart, the comedian, and it's the driving instructor. It's really hilarious. He's also got a bus driver training school and an air traffic controller, one that's pretty funny, but anyway, yeah, go find the driving instructor. It's, you'll love it, but it's, it is interesting to to see how how people deal with some of these things. And I do think that the time will come when autonomous vehicles truly do come into their own. We're not there yet. We're sort of still on the cusp, and there's a lot to be done, but it will happen, and Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  49:11 they're definitely working on it. Michael Hingson  49:12 They are, and it will it will become a lot better when truly autonomous vehicles work as we want them to, because then we will be able to take driving out of the hands of drivers, and that'll probably be a good thing, so that we won't have nearly the accident levels that we have today. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  49:29 Yes, some of them are quite, quite high and quite nasty. Michael Hingson  49:34 Yeah, well, and we're getting to the point where technology helps in so many ways. So you know that that'll that'll be pretty cool as as we get there. How do you have do you ever use like AI and any of the things that you do with writing? Does any of that help you with ideas? Or do you utilize any of those technologies? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  49:56 Um, so I haven't really used AI for my writing, although. I've used it for my uncle passed away in the summer, and my aunt was like, Oh, can you write a eulogy based on all of these things? And I'm like, sure, hey, chat. GPT write a eulogy with all of this stuff, because I didn't actually have the time to do it or the brain power. So I did that, and it came out, spit out something real nice, and I sent it to her. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I'm like, Cool. Michael Hingson  50:28 I have used chat GPT to help in writing. I don't want to let it be the writer, but I I'll ask it to write things, and I'll do it three or four times, and I'll take all the ideas that it comes up with and integrate them with my own because I I really need to be responsible for what ultimately comes out. But I think that chat, GPT and the other technologies that are out there do and will continue to help a great deal. I remember the first time I heard about AI, it was when somebody was complaining that students are using it to write their papers, and the teachers can't necessarily detect it, and that's not a good thing. And immediately I thought and said, Well, I don't quite see the problem. What you do is you let the students write their papers using chat, D, P, T, they turn them in. Then you take one day, and you give each student a minute, and you tell them to come up and defend their paper. There you go, without looking at it, because the teacher has it. Either they're going to know the subject or they're not. And I think that's, you know, that's a sensible thing to do. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  51:36 And what I've what I've seen, and the little bits that I've kind of played around with it just to see what it'll spit out. It really only gives you something worth a good mark in school. Say, like, a good grade, if you are giving it the information you want it to have to use, yeah. So you should, you should have already done the research and know stuff, like, I know that you can ask it and say, like, you know, give me some research on whatever topic, but if you've done the research, the paper will actually spit out much better. I find that if you say, I want you to do this, this, this, this, this, and, like, give it a lot of criteria, and then it spits out your paper. So I mean, if kids are gonna use it. They've done the research. They just maybe struggle with their grammar. They like with my kid, that would have helped her immensely. Sure she she knows the facts, but she doesn't know how to write, you know, an essay. Even though we've tried and tried to try, it's just not computing. There's kids out there, right? We talked about dyslexia and stuff like, if kids can do all the research fine and source it somehow and then spit it into this machine so it can come out in a readable paper. I mean, what's to say that's bad? Michael Hingson  52:50 Well, again, what I do is a little backwards from that, because I'll give it a lot of information, and it'll come back, and it'll give me something, and I'll say, give me another one, and I will get five or six of those, and then I will take what I like from each of them and put them together with my own words, because I want it to be my style, and I know that the large language models are getting better at emulating your individual writing style, but still, I want it to be my style, so I will write the final document, but it has contributed a lot of neat ideas and a lot of things to help that make that to actually be something that is sensible, and the articles or the books not well. I haven't used it to write a book, but the articles and other papers and other things I've written with it do come out well, but, but I'm still the one that has to approve it and make it occur. And I realize that somebody who has like dyslexia, it's a little bit different story, or somebody who maybe has autism, they're going to have some problems with it, and I can appreciate that, and they may rely on it more, but you're right. She knows the facts, and she gives it the information she can also figure out how to do it in such a way that she's going to get something that would be written the way she wants it written, exactly right. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  54:08 So I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I just think we need to use it as a tool, not as a crutch, correct? And when you talk about AI, one thing that I do use, and I absolutely love, so on my podcast, I use Riverside Riverside, will AI generate you like, the little short clips that I can stick on Tiktok and stuff? Oh, it saves me so much time. Most of the time, the clips are awesome. Sometimes I'll be like, and that clips not so good. I'm not going to use that one. But for the most part, it's pretty spot on finding the good clips to use for, like, Tiktok shorts and stuff. So that saves an immense amount of time. I do really like that. AI tech Michael Hingson  54:46 well, and we're all going to, as we go forward, find more and more ways that this technology will help us, but it's still us that has to be in control of it. I'm i. Think we're a whole heck of a long way from sentient computers that are able to do all that. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  55:05 Yes, yeah, we're a little far away from the Terminator era. Michael Hingson  55:09 Yeah, so it isn't going to happen in the in the near term, but, but we'll, we'll get there, and we'll, we'll see some things occurring. It'll just take it a while. But I think that writing is so fascinating. I've now written three books. I love it. I don't, and people have asked if I'm going to write another one. And my response right now is, nothing's coming up, but something else may pop out in the future, and if it does, then we'll do Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  55:37 it exactly. I always, Mickey actually asked me a little bit ago, well, I want to show when your next book is out, and I was telling him about the script idea. We gotta actually talk a little bit more. But he's like, so is you're writing on pause? I'm like, well, not really, because I always have ideas. So like it is, but like it isn't, you know, focusing on one thing, but there's always going to be ideas that are going to generate that I might have to get out onto paper. Maybe not finish, but get out. Michael Hingson  56:06 Yeah. Now we talked about we, we discovered each other through Mickey. Mickey has also been a guest on unstoppable mindset. I don't remember when that episode is coming up, but, but we got him on. That'll be fun. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  56:23 Yeah, Mickey did an episode on my show a while back. Now, he should probably come back and do another one, but he did one a while back. Michael Hingson  56:31 But I enjoy writing. I think it's fascinating. I think it's fun. I believe it's really important to be able to communicate with people. Of course, I've been a keynote speaker now for 24 years, ever since September 11. And I realized somewhere along the line, probably, oh, I'd say seven or eight years ago, it really hit home that we have a whole new generation of people who never experienced and don't know anything about September 11. So what I love to tell people is my job now is to take people into the building with me and take them downstairs, step by step, going through all the things that I experienced, and coming out the other end, and really being able to follow all of that so that they have a true sense of what happened for me, at least in the World Trade Center, and why it happened. The idea being that that helps to teach them more about September 11, teach them more concepts about why it's important to truly learn emergency preparedness and not rely on reading signs and things like that, but learn truly how to have all that information. Because if you have information in your head, and you're not relying on signs, if you truly know it, and you know what's supposed to happen in any kind of given set of circumstances, that helps you control fear and that keeps it from overwhelming you, which is what's really important as far as I'm concerned. And that's what we did with live like a Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  58:01 guide dog, yeah? And that's what we talked about on my show. So everybody go watch Michael's episode on the Ride or Die show, and you'll hear more about it. Michael Hingson  58:07 There you are. See it's important, yeah? Well, I want to thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun. If people want to reach out to you and talk with you, how do they do that? Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  58:19 Yeah, so my website is rb, writing.ca and then you can find me. RB, writing.ca RB, writing.ca writing as in, WR, I T, okay. And then I am on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Randy, Lee Bowslaugh, YouTube, you can either do my name or you can do right or die show. And then all the all the podcasting platforms, you can find it on the Ride or Die show, spell for us, B, O, W, s, l, a, U, G, Michael Hingson  58:52 H, bowslaugh. There you go see. So if you had some advice to give to a young person, not necessarily who's dealing with autism or whatever. But if you wanted to impart some lesson for for people to take away from our show, what would it be today Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  59:12 advocate for yourself? That would be the biggest one. It's way harder than it sounds to actually, truly advocate for yourself and keep going until you find answers. If you're feeling like any of the things that we've talked about on the show, right? And I think that's yeah, advocate for yourself. And if you can't, then find somebody that can advocate for you and learn to do it. Michael Hingson  59:40 Yeah, and it's important to do that. And the fact of the matter is, in so many ways, you have to learn to advocate for yourself, because no one else is really going to do it like you can. And a lot of times, no one's going to do it period, because their priorities are all different. So you do need to learn to be a self advocate. Well, Randy, thank you. For being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. Love to hear your thoughts about our episode today. Feel free to email me at Michael H, i@accessibe.com that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, and if you would please give us a five star rating, and please review us wherever you're observing our podcast. We value your reviews and your ratings very highly. And also, if you know of anyone who ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset Randy, that goes for you as well, we would sure appreciate any introductions. We're always looking for other people who want to come on and help us discover and learn and show others that we're all more unstoppable than we think we are, and you can help make that happen. So I urge you to to do that. We'd love to hear from you, and we value your input and your thoughts very highly. And again, Randy, I want to thank you for being here. This has been fun again. Randi-Lee Bowslaugh  1:01:01 Yes. Thank you so much for having me back. Michael Hingson  1:01:07 Thank you for being here with me on unstoppable mindset. I hope today's conversation left you with a fresh perspective, a new insight, or at least something worth thinking about if you're ready to go deeper into the ideas that shape how we see ourselves and others. I have a free gift for you. Head over to Michael hingson.com and download my free ebook blinded by fear. It explores the invisible beliefs that hold us back and shows you how to reframe them so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review and share this show with someone who can use a reminder that growth starts with mindset. When people think differently, we all move forward together. Thanks again for listening, keep learning, keep questioning, and keep choosing to live with an unstoppable mindset. You.

In this episode, we discuss real world treatment of proliferative diabetic retinopathy using data from the Vestrum data base; with Dr. Adrienne Scott, Fred M. Leader Family Retina Professor of the Wilmer Eye Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Today's episode features Eileen Rivera Ley, a powerhouse at the intersection of business, innovation, and blindness advocacy. Eileen brings an impressive academic background, having earned a degree in economics from Harvard and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Her career includes work at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, but her entrepreneurial spirit ultimately led her to found Blind Savvy USA. Today, she serves as president of this innovative training and consulting company focused on low vision and blindness, helping organizations and individuals rethink what's possible through education, strategy, and lived experience.

Dr. Natalia Vergara is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus. Natalia uses stem cells to understand how the retina forms during development and how it degenerates during disease with the goal of developing therapies to help patients who suffer from vision loss. For her research, Natalia uses a type of stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells which can be reprogrammed so they can form any type of cell in the body. With these cells, they can make human retina tissue using any individual's cells in a petri dish in the lab to better understand diseases, test treatments, and potentially prepare retinas for transplant. In her free time, Natalia loves hanging out, cooking, and enjoying food with friends and family, including her husband and two young kids. Natalia is also an avid traveler, and she delights in the thrill of discovery that comes along with exploring new places. Natalia received her B.S. in biochemistry from the National University of the Litoral in Argentina. She worked as an instructor and research intern at the National University of Entre Ríos for about three years before beginning graduate school. Natalia was awarded her PhD in retinal regenerative biology from Miami University in Ohio. Afterwards, she conducted postdoctoral research at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She served as a Research Associate Faculty member at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for about two years before joining the faculty at the University of Colorado. Natalia has received awards for research and for mentoring, including the Ruben Adler Research Award from the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2012, and she was selected as an Emerging Vision Scientist to participate in the Third Annual EVS day on Capitol Hill by the National Alliance for Eye and Vision Research in 2017. In our interview, Natalia tells us more about her life and science.

"It's recommended that everyone over the age of 40 go see their eye doctor once a year." -Dr. Rudrani Banik   Dr. Rudrani "Rani" Banik is a renowned board-certified neuro-ophthalmologist and an integrative medicine specialist based in New York City. She holds the position of Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Mount Sinai and has an impressive educational background, including an MD from Brown University, a residency at UC Irvine, and a fellowship at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Banik adopts a holistic approach to eye health, focusing on nutrition, lifestyle, and supplementation. She is also a prolific author and media expert, featured on platforms like Good Morning America, NBC, and The New York Times. Episode Summary: Join host Jana Short in an engaging conversation with Dr. Rudrani "Rani" Banik, renowned neuro-ophthalmologist and integrative medicine specialist, as they delve into the intricacies of eye health and holistic wellness. In this enlightening episode, Dr. Banik shares her personal journey with chronic daily migraines, which led her to discover the powerful potential of lifestyle and dietary changes in managing health conditions. With a foundation in conventional medicine, she transitioned to a more integrative approach, emphasizing the importance of diet, stress management, and functional medicine in overall well-being.   Throughout the episode, Dr. Banik discusses her innovative work in eye health, emphasizing the role of nutrition and supplements in maintaining optimal vision. She elaborates on the extensive array of nutrients, beyond the well-known carrots, that contribute to eye health, such as lutein and zeaxanthin. Her insights extend to the necessity of regular eye examinations and lifestyle adjustments to protect and preserve ocular health. Dr. Banik also introduces her supplement line, Ageless by Dr. Rani, and her book, "Beyond Carrots," showcasing her dedication to educating others on the significance of holistic eye care.   Key Takeaways: Dr. Rani Banik's journey with chronic migraines led her to embrace integrative medicine, highlighting the impact of diet and lifestyle on health management. Regular eye checkups are crucial, as the eyes can reveal early signs of over 200 medical conditions. Beyond carrots, nutrients like lutein, zeaxanthin, and meso-zeaxanthin are vital for eye health, acting as internal sunglasses and blue blockers. Incorporating diverse foods, such as leafy greens, bell peppers, and spices, can significantly reduce the risk of eye diseases. Supplements should complement a healthy diet, filling in nutritional gaps due to factors like dietary absorption or soil nutrient depletion.   Resources: www.drranibanik.com https://www.facebook.com/rudrani.banik.2025/ @‌dr.ranibanik https://x.com/RudraniBanikMD     ✨ Enjoying the show? Stay inspired long after the episode ends! Jana is gifting you **free subscriptions to Ageless Living Magazine and **Best Holistic Life Magazine—two of the fastest-growing publications dedicated to holistic health, personal growth, and living your most vibrant life. Inside, you'll find powerful stories, expert insights, and practical tools to help you thrive—mind, body, and soul.  

In this episode of the BroadEYE Podcast, hosts Shawn Maloney and Dr. Bruno Fernandez dive into a fascinating discussion with Dr. Peter Campochiaro, a clinician-scientist at Johns Hopkins' Wilmer Eye Institute, about the potential of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) as a treatment for retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Dr. Campochiaro shares how his research journey began with unexpected findings in mouse models, revealing how excess oxygen in the retina—caused by the loss of rod photoreceptors in RP—leads to oxidative stress that damages surviving cone cells. This discovery paved the way for the NAC Attack clinical trial, a phase 3 study exploring whether NAC, a potent antioxidant, can slow cone degeneration and preserve vision in RP patients. The conversation covers the science behind NAC, its safety profile, and why it was chosen over other antioxidants like glutathione or CoQ10. Shawn, who lives with late-stage RP, brings a personal perspective, while Bruno, an ophthalmologist, digs into the broader implications for retinal diseases. Dr. Campochiaro also addresses practical challenges, like NAC's over-the-counter availability versus its regulated use, and cautions against self-medication without medical supervision. The episode offers hope for RP patients while emphasizing the importance of awaiting trial results, expected in a couple of years, to confirm NAC's efficacy and long-term safety.

Professor Gene de Juan Jr has an incredible lifetime of innovations and inventions where great ideas are turned into ophthalmology practice. In this episode we talk about his time at Duke University (with the father of vitrectomy, Prof Robert Machemer), the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California (USC). He is now a professor at UCSF and he leads ForSight Labs. You have certainly enjoyed using his inventions from small gauge vitrectomy, to retinal disease, to glaucoma shunts, and much more. We feature a new podcast every week on Sundays and they are uploaded to all major podcast services (click links here: Apple, Google, Spotify) for enjoying as you drive to work or exercise. I am really excited to share these amazing podcasts with you. The full video of the podcast is here on CataractCoach as well as on our YouTube channel. For 2024 our podcast is sponsored by Harrow, Inc and we are thankful for their support.

On this episode, Laura Enyedi, MD, is live from the Women in Ophthalmology meeting with Pratap Challa, MD, Fasika Woreta, MD, Jennifer Lindsey, MD, and Annie Wishna, MD, discussing residency programs.  Intro 0:01 Meet the panel 0:11 Pratap Challa, MD 0:23 Fasika Woreta, MD, MPH 1:05 Jennifer Lindsey, MD, MBA 1:43 Annie E. Wishna, MD 2:18 In this episode 2:28 What are your thoughts on parental leave policies and what are your experiences with it? 2:33 How do you approach the residency applications when it comes to holistic reviews? 8:15 Has providing a virtual aspect to the application process increased your numbers? 11:43 Do you have any advice for applicants? How can they make their application stand out? 12:39 How are the integrated internships working out? What have been the challenges? 16:50 What is your favorite book or a book you've read recently? 20:50 Thanks 25:02 Pratap Challa, MD, is a glaucoma specialist, professor of ophthalmology and director of residency education at Duke University.  Laura Enyedi, MD, is a professor of ophthalmology and pediatrics at Duke Eye Center and medical director of South Durham Ophthalmology in North Carolina. Jennifer Lindsey, MD, MBA, is a board-certified ophthalmologist and the director of resident education at Vanderbilt University. Annie E. Wishna, MD, is a clinical associate professor of ophthalmology and the director of the residency program at the University of Kansas. Fasika A. Woreta, MD, MPH, is a cornea and cataract specialist and the Eugene de Juan, MD professor of ophthalmic education at Wilmer Eye Institute's Baltimore and Columbia locations. She is the director of the eye trauma center, the director of the ophthalmology residency program and vice chair of education at the Wilmer Eye Institute. We'd love to hear from you! Send your comments/questions to podcast@healio.com. Follow us on Twitter @Healio_OSN. Disclosures: The guests report no relevant financial disclosures.

EN: In this episode of Seeing Clearly, Mohamed Gemae and Anas Abu-Dieh (two Eye Curriculum Ambassadors) talk to Dr. Samir Jabbour, cornea specialist at the University of Montréal and McGill University. This is the fourth episode of our french mini-series (“Vision Claire”).  Dr. Jabbour is a cornea specialist at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM). He is also an associate professor at the University of Montreal and McGill University. Dr. Jabbour completed his medical studies at McGill University and his residency at the University of Montreal. He completed a clinical subspecialty in cornea, anterior segment, and refractive surgery at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. He has a second clinical fellowship in cornea from Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, United Kingdom. Dr. Jabbour is an ophthalmologist and clinician-scientist specializing in the treatment of diseases of the anterior segment of the eye, including corneal grafts and ocular surface reconstruction. His research areas encompass advanced techniques in keratoplasty, cataract surgery, and refractive surgery. Additionally, Dr. Jabbour has a particular interest in public health and is currently pursuing a master's degree in this field at Harvard University. In this episode, we discuss: Dr. Jabbour's unique journey in ophthalmology What a "Day in the Life" of Dr. Jabbour looks like His experience in the United States of America and in the United Kingdom His passion for research Advice for medical students/residents People who have inspired him in life! Check out our website: www.eyecurriculum.com Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/EyeCurriculum Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EyeCurriculum Dans cet épisode de Seeing Clearly, Mohamed Gemae et Anas Abu-Dieh (ambassadeurs de Eye Curriculum) discutent avec Dr Samir Jabbour, un spécialiste en cornée et la chirurgie réfractive à l'Université de Montréal et à l'Université McGill. Ceci est le quatrième épisode de la mini-série Francophone, “Vision Claire”. Dr Jabbour est un spécialiste en glaucome au Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM). Il est aussi professeur associé à l'Université de Montréal et à l'Université McGill. Dr Jabbour a complété ses études en médecine à McGill et sa résidence à l'Université de Montréal. Il a complété une sous-spécialisation clinique en cornée, du segment antérieur et chirurgie réfractive au Wilmer Eye Institute à John Hopkins. Il a un deuxième fellowship clinique en cornée de l'hôpital Moorfields Eye Hospital, à Londres au Royaume-Uni. Dr Jabbour est ophtalmologiste et clinicien-chercheur spécialisé dans le traitement des maladies du segment antérieur de l'œil, notamment les greffes de cornée et la reconstruction de la surface oculaire. Ses domaines de recherche englobent les techniques avancées en kératoplastie, la chirurgie de la cataracte et la chirurgie réfractive. Par ailleurs, Dr Jabbour possède une expertise en santé publique et poursuit actuellement une maîtrise dans ce domaine à l'Université Harvard. Dans cet épisode, nous abordons : Le parcours de Dr Jabbour en ophtalmologie À quoi ressemble une "Journée dans la vie" de Dr Jabbour Ses expériences aux États-Unis d'Amérique et au Royaume-Uni Sa passion pour la recherche  Des conseils pour les étudiants en médecine/résidents Des personnes qui l'ont inspiré dans sa vie!

Dr. Rudrani Banik is a Board-certified Ophthalmologist, fellowship-trained Neuro-Ophthalmologist, and Functional Medicine expert. She is fully trained in ophthalmic surgery and Botox, and she has a special interest in treating headaches and migraine. Dr. Banik manages a wide spectrum of conditions affecting vision, as well as the complex connections between the eye and brain. She graduated with a B.A with Honors and M.D. from Brown University. She trained in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, followed by Ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine, and Neuro-Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Banik is the founder of Envision Health NYC, a private practice based on the Upper East Side in New York City, and is an Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. Dr. Banik brings more than 20 years of experience and extensive knowledge of the eye and brain, combined with a holistic approach, to her own practice.   Together Dr. Rani and I explore the role that functional medicine plays in achieving optimal eye health.  She offers updates on the latest research, shares vitamin recommendations, and highlights the importance of eye exams in understanding overall body health. Rani answers the questions that she hears most often from her patients, including the effectiveness of blue light-blocking glasses, eye drop recommendations, and warnings, and how to meet the daily requirements of natural plant foods in a healthy diet. She also covers the research, food, and supplement recommendations for popular antioxidants and bioflavonoids and offers key talking points for practitioners to engage their patients in optimal eye health. I'm your host, Evelyne Lambrecht, thank you for designing a well world with us. Episode Resources:   Dr. Rani Banik   Lutemax 2020 Science Overview   Iris: Blue light filter and eye protection software   Age-Related Eye Disease Studies (AREDS/AREDS2)   Designs for Health   Science Update: Recent Review Explores Relationship Between Eye Health and Nutrients to Support Antioxidative Status   Science Update: Recent Review Investigates Eye Aging and Supporting Antioxidative Status   Nutrition Blog: Eye Health Effects of Vitamin E Tocotrienols   Nutrition Blog: Nutritional Support for Eye Health   Nutrition Blog: Nutrient Protection Against Photooxidation and Blue Light Exposure   Educational Webinar: Modernizing Migraine Care: Innovations in Migraine Management Visit the Designs for Health Research and Education Library which houses medical journals, protocols, webinars, and our blog. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:10 Dr. Rani recounts her journey from an ophthalmologist and neuro-ophthalmologist facing migraine headaches to a patient of functional medicine. 5:56 Key changes that Rani saw in her migraine and macular degeneration patients once she implemented functional medicine in her ophthalmology practice. 9:35 Indicators of over 200 overall body health conditions can be identified in an eye exam including diabetic retinopathy for diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease. 12:19 Changes in the retina can indicate warning signs for serious health concerns. 14:02 30 nutrients that are needed for optimal eye health can be broken into 3 main categories of antioxidants, nutrients that support mitochondrial function and energy production, and anti-inflammatory nutrients. 18:04 Recommendations for safe and effective eye drops to address dry eye symptoms. 19:15 Rani's vitamin recommendations for optimal eye health include optimized forms of Vitamin A and natural antioxidants from macular carotenoids. 25:10 An ophthalmologist's warning against looking directly into the sun and a reasonable alternative to setting your circadian rhythm. 27:12 Measuring carotenoid concentrations in the retina with Macular Pigment Optical Density (MPOD). 29:50 Natural food and supplement recommendations to maintain healthy levels of lutein and zeaxanthin. 34:00 The negative effect of screen time on eye health needs to be counterbalanced by macular carotenoids and blue light-blocking glasses. 39:30 Research, food, and supplement recommendations for popular antioxidants and bioflavonoids that support eye health. 45:12 Rani's recommendation for 5 cups of plant foods every day can easily be met with her green smoothie recipe. 46:52 Findings from age-related eye disease studies (AREDS) and key missing links to supporting eye health. 53:43 Rani's top three personal supplements, prioritized health practices, and individualized journey advice that she has changed her mind about over the years.  

Show notes: (1:13) How did she get into the line of work she's in? (2:26) Common issues she sees with her patients (6:17) Good practices, supplements, and exercises (13:44) On blue light-blocking glasses (20:32) UV, sun gazing, and red light (26:24) Finding the right eye health supplement (29:24) Most common eye issue as we age (34:29) Exercises for eye health (36:14) On LASIK eye surgery (38:49) Where to find Dr. Rani Banik (40:26) Outro Who is Dr. Rani Banik?   Dr. Rudrani Banik is a Board-certified Ophthalmologist, fellowship-trained Neuro-Ophthalmologist, and Functional Medicine expert. She is fully trained in ophthalmic surgery and Botox, and she has a special interest in treating Headache and Migraine. Dr. Banik manages a wide spectrum of conditions affecting vision, as well as the complex connections between the eye and brain.   Dr. Banik has specialized training in Functional Medicine. She applies principles of complementary and alternative medicine in conjunction with traditional medical approaches to treat chronic diseases affecting the visual system. She offers a unique approach to managing conditions such as dry eye, macular degeneration, blepharitis, migraine, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, thyroid eye disease, uveitis, and other autoimmune conditions.   Dr. Banik has thirteen years of training at some of the finest medical and eye institutes in the country. She graduated with a B.A with Honors and M.D. from Brown University. She trained in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, followed by Ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine. She went on to pursue Neuro-Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins.   ​She has served on full-time faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai.   ​Dr. Banik is founder of Envision Health NYC, a private practice based on the Upper East Side in New York City. She is Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. Dr. Banik has won many teaching awards and also serves as principal investigator for 5 multi-centered clinical trials in neuro-ophthalmology. She has authored numerous articles and has presented at national and international meetings. Dr. Banik is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Exam Development Committee and helps to set the standards for board certification in her field.   ​ Connect with Dr. Rani: Website: https://www.drranibanik.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/dr.ranibanik/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.ranibanik TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.ranibanik Links and Resources: Peak Performance Life Peak Performance on Facebook Peak Performance on Instagram    

Approximately 20 million people in the United States (344 million worldwide) have #dryeye disease. Dry eye is most common in people over age 50. In this month's podcast, moderator Dr. Lillie Shockney is joined by Dr. Lauren Gormley, an optometrist at the Wilmer Eye Institute.

Dr. Rani is one of two ophthalmologists in the country who is also certified in functional medicine. How does this change how she approaches eye health? Dr. Rani is able to diagnose up to 200 conditions from your eyes – things like MS and diabetes, but also Lupus, and Lyme Disease. We discuss glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration, and more. This is a fascinating conversation. If you want to learn how to care for your eyes as you age and what supplements and foods to prioritize, this is the episode for you. For example, did you know you should get an eye exam every year after the age of 40? Learn more now! Visit https://thegoodlifecoach.com/298 for show notes and links mentioned. Join The Newsletter + Receive Your Free List of 52 Selfcare Tips Connect with Michele on Instagram RESOURCES MENTIONED Dr. Rani Banik's website: www.drranibanik.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.ranibanik/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8mIi8P9tXSRXXwEdNX6aRw Book: Beyond Carrots: Best Foods For Eye Health A to Z Dr. Rani's Visionary Kitchen (Beyond Carrots) If you enjoyed this interview, please take a moment to rate and review it on Apple podcasts. Your reviews are so appreciated! Not sure how to do it? Instructions are below. XO, Michele Rate + Review: 1. Click on this link 2. Click “View in Apple Podcasts” button 3. Make sure to “Follow” 4. Scroll down until you see “Ratings and Reviews” as shown below. ABOUT OUR GUEST Dr. Rudrani (Rani) Banik is a board-certified neuro-ophthalmologist. She completed her MD at Brown University, residency at UC Irvine, and fellowship at Wilmer Eye Institute. Dr. Banik runs a private practice based in NYC and is Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Mount Sinai.Dr. Banik is also certified in Integrative and Functional Medicine. She focuses on the root cause of eye diseases, and uses strategies based on nutrition, botanicals, lifestyle modification, and supplements.Dr. Banik is often featured as an expert in the media. She has been voted Castle Connolly Top Doctor and NY Magazine's Best Doctor in Ophthalmology annually since 2017.Dr. Banik is the author of two best-selling books,“Beyond Carrots – Best Foods For Eye Health A to Z' and “Dr. Rani's Visionary Kitchen.”

Are you experiencing a headache or a migraine? Many women experience migraines throughout their lives, but certain factors that can increase the likelihood of migraines. So what can you do to prevent them?Today, I'm thrilled to have Dr. Rani Banik back on the show. She joined me on episode 204 to discuss the biggest eye issues in women.  In this episode though, we are diving into the world of migraines and why people, especially perimenopausal and menopausal women, may be experiencing them!You will hear:What a migraine is, how it differs from a headache, and if this mattersThe phases of a migraineRisk factors of migraines, both genetic and lifestyleMinimizing your risk of migrainesHow your neurotransmitters interact with your gut healthThe biggest factor that can play a role in if you experience migraines (hint: this is where perimenopause and menopause are key!)And more!More about Dr. Rani:Dr. Rani Banik is a Board-certified Ophthalmologist, fellowship-trained Neuro-Ophthalmologist, and Functional Medicine expert. She is fully trained in ophthalmic surgery and Botox, and she has a special interest in treating Headache and Migraine. Dr. Banik manages a wide spectrum of conditions affecting vision, as well as the complex connections between the eye and brain. She applies principles of complementary and alternative medicine in conjunction with traditional medical approaches to treat chronic diseases affecting the visual system. She offers a unique approach to managing conditions such as dry eye, macular degeneration, blepharitis, migraine, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, thyroid eye disease, uveitis, and other autoimmune conditions.Dr. Banik has thirteen years of training at some of the finest medical and eye institutes in the country. She graduated with a B.A with Honors and M.D. from Brown University. She trained in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, followed by Ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine. She went on to pursue Neuro-Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. She has served on full-time faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. Dr. Banik is founder of Envision Health NYC, a private practice based on the Upper East Side in New York City. She is Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. Dr. Banik has won many teaching awards and also serves as principal investigator for 5 multi-centered clinical trials in neuro-ophthalmology. Connect with Dr. Rani:Dr. Rani's Website: https://www.drranibanik.com/Dr. Rani's Instagram: If you want to lose weight without the risk of gastroparesis, muscle loss, and rebound weight gain, then use MetaboLift instead!Struggling with balancing your hormones? Grab your copy of the The Gutsy Gynecologist's Guide to Balancing your Hormones: https://drtabatha.com/free-guide/Support your hormone balance- EnergyLift! Connect with Dr. Tabatha:Work with us: Schedule a callDr. Tabatha's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTabathaDr. Tabatha's IG: https://www.instagram.com/thegutsygynecologist/Dr. Tabatha's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWea1x1abLERehb5yn_nfow

Experiencing dry eyes? Feel like you're constantly straining your eyes? These changes may actually be due to hormone changes or even perimenopause! I know I've started to have eye issues and that it is most likely due to perimenopause!If you've been struggling with your vision, then today's guest, Dr. Rani Banik, is here to explain what is actually causing your eye issues. Together, we dive into the 3 main eye issues women are facing today! You will hear:How vision is affected by age and hormonesConventional ophthalmology vs. Functional ophthalmologyIf carrots are actually good for your eyes How screens may be affecting your visionThe real truth about blue blocker glassesHow annual exam eyes can detect so much more than just changes in visionAnd more!More about Dr. Banik:Dr. Rani Banik is a Board-certified Ophthalmologist, fellowship-trained Neuro-Ophthalmologist, and Functional Medicine expert. She is fully trained in ophthalmic surgery and Botox, and she has a special interest in treating Headache and Migraine. Dr. Banik manages a wide spectrum of conditions affecting vision, as well as the complex connections between the eye and brain. She applies principles of complementary and alternative medicine in conjunction with traditional medical approaches to treat chronic diseases affecting the visual system. She offers a unique approach to managing conditions such as dry eye, macular degeneration, blepharitis, migraine, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, thyroid eye disease, uveitis, and other autoimmune conditions.Dr. Banik has thirteen years of training at some of the finest medical and eye institutes in the country. She graduated with a B.A with Honors and M.D. from Brown University. She trained in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, followed by Ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine. She went on to pursue Neuro-Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. She has served on full-time faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. Dr. Banik is founder of Envision Health NYC, a private practice based on the Upper East Side in New York City. She is Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. Dr. Banik has won many teaching awards and also serves as principal investigator for 5 multi-centered clinical trials in neuro-ophthalmology. Connect with Dr. Rani:Dr. Rani's Website: The book you need to truly transform yourself in 2024 is here! Fast to Faith: A 40-Day Awakening. Reconnect Your Body, Mind, and Soul For Lasting Weight Loss, Sustained Energy, and Unstoppable Strength! AND receive all the awesome BONUSES for being a quick-starter!See ya soon- GOD BLESS YOU!!!Struggling with balancing your hormones? Grab your copy of the The Gutsy Gynecologist's Guide to Balancing your Hormones: https://drtabatha.com/free-guide/Support your hormone balance- EnergyLift! Connect with Dr. Tabatha:Work with us: Schedule a callDr. Tabatha's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTabathaDr. Tabatha's IG: https://www.instagram.com/thegutsygynecologist/Dr. Tabatha's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWea1x1abLERehb5yn_nfow

In this riveting episode of 'It Happened to Me', join co-hosts Cathy Gildenhorn and Beth Glassman as they sit with Dr. Esen Akpek, a leader in corneal and stem cell transplantation. Listen as Dr. Akpek sheds light on emerging research around a groundbreaking synthetic corneal device. This conversation is a beacon of hope for those at high risk of failure from traditional donor corneal transplants and for anyone interested in advancements in ophthalmology. Discover the intricacies of corneal transplantation, the common eye disorders that affect corneal transparency, and the importance of regular eye check-ups and vaccines in preventing such conditions. Expect a deep dive into the complexities of developing an artificial cornea, the multiple challenges faced, and the potential life-changing impact it holds for individuals around the world. Led by Dr. Akpek's expertise and research, explore the evolving landscape of corneal transplants, the struggle with rejection rates, and the prospect of an acrylic glass cornea as a more sustainable alternative. Despite the inevitable hurdles in the journey, the promising success rate paints an optimistic future for vision impairment globally. Be sure to check out Dr. Akpek's previous interview on Episode #28 where she shared her expertise on dry eye, what it is and what we can do to relieve it.   Dr. Esen Akpek (she/her) is the Bendann Family Professor of Ophthalmology at The Wilmer Eye Institute, The Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Her area of expertise is in the fields of ocular surface diseases and corneal transplantation. Her current research centers around developing a synthetic corneal device for patients who are at high risk of failure with donor corneal transplantation. She combines the rare characteristics of superior surgical skill and patient empathy. You can learn more about Dr. Akpek on her Johns Hopkins' listing here.  We would like to disclose, our co-host Beth Glassman is a patient of Dr. Akpek.   You can also listen to our previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, streaming on the website, or any other podcast player by searching, “It Happened To Me”.  “It Happened To Me” is created and hosted by Cathy Gildenhorn and Beth Glassman. DNA Today's Kira Dineen is our executive producer and marketing lead. Amanda Andreoli is our associate producer. Ashlyn Enokian is our graphic designer. See what else we are up to on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and our website, ItHappenedToMePod.com. Questions/inquiries can be sent to ItHappenedToMePod@gmail.com. 

We are joined by Dr. Esen Akpek to discuss dry eye, what it is and what we can do to relieve it.     Dr. Esen Akpek (she/her) is the Bendann Family Professor of Ophthalmology at The Wilmer Eye Institute, The Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Her area of expertise is in the fields of ocular surface diseases and corneal transplantation. Her current research centers around developing a synthetic corneal device for patients who are at high risk of failure with donor corneal transplantation. She combines the rare characteristics of superior surgical skill and patient empathy. You can learn more about Dr. Akpek on her Johns Hopkins' listing here.    We would like to disclose, our co-host Beth Glassman is a patient of Dr. Akpek.     Dr. Esen Akpek joins us again on “It Happened To Me” in our next episode where we will chat about corneal transplantation. In the meantime, you can listen to our previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, streaming on the website, or any other podcast player by searching, “It Happened To Me”.    “It Happened To Me” is created and hosted by Cathy Gildenhorn and Beth Glassman. DNA Today's Kira Dineen is our executive producer and marketing lead. Amanda Andreoli is our associate producer. Ashlyn Enokian is our graphic designer.   See what else we are up to on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and our website, ItHappenedToMePod.com. Questions/inquiries can be sent to ItHappenedToMePod@gmail.com.   

Fala Doutores, tudo bem? No episódio de hoje convidei a Dra. ZELIA CORREA. - Médica oftalmologista. - Diretora médica do Bascom Palmer Eye Institute na Universidade de Miami. - Especialista em Oncologia Ocular. - Passagem como diretora médica no Wilmer Eye Institute da Johns Hopkins. - Muitas publicações, nas maiores revistas da área do planeta. - Idealizadora do Curso de Liderança do CBO. - Graduada em Língua Portuguesa e inglesa pela Faculdade Riopretense de filosofia e letras. #faladoutores #carreiras #oftalmologia

We are honored to have Dr. Andrew Carey as a guest on this episode of on It Happened To Me. As a disclosure, Dr. Carey is our co-host Cathy Gildenhorn's Doctor who diagnosed her rare disease, Wolfram Syndrome.    Andrew R. Carey, MD (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology in the division of Neuro-Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute. He specializes in neuro-ophthalmic disorders such as optic neuritis, uveitis related papillitis, ischemic & hereditary optic neuropathies as well as diseases of the retina, including age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, toxic retinopathies and inherited disorders of the retina such as retinitis pigmentosa.   Stay tuned for the next new episode of It Happened To Me! In the meantime, you can listen to our previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, streaming on the website, or any other podcast player by searching, “It Happened To Me”.    It Happened To Me is created and hosted by Cathy Gildenhorn and Beth Glassman. Steve Holsonback is our media engineer and co-producer. DNA Today's Kira Dineen is our marketing lead and co-producer. Ashlyn Enokian is our graphic designer.    See what else we are up to on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and our website, ItHappenedToMePod.com. Questions/inquiries can be sent to ItHappenedToMePod@gmail.com.   

Is there scientific evidence that marijuana can be used as a treatment for glaucoma? Guest expert speaker Mona Kaleem, MD, will provide an overview of the scientific-based evidence that marijuana can be used as a treatment for glaucoma. Dr. Mona Kaleem is an Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University, who specializes in glaucoma and cataract surgery. In addition to running a busy clinical and surgical service, she is also a dedicated researcher, educator, and volunteer. Dr. Kaleem is best known for her interests in developing models for patient-centered care, investigating social determinants of health, and integrative medicine. A co-host of the Diagnosis Glaucoma podcast and a worldwide speaker on glaucoma, Dr. Kaleem has also published numerous peer-reviewed articles and textbook chapters on glaucoma.

Join us on the Faculty Factory Podcast this week as we delve into an insightful conversation Sharon D. Solomon, MD. Dr. Solomon shares invaluable tips on maintaining equilibrium between a thriving personal life and a meaningful pursuit of promotion. Dr. Solomon currently serves as the Katharine M. Graham Professor of Ophthalmology with the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine in Baltimore. She is also the co-chair of the clinical excellence promotion committee with Johns Hopkins. In this episode, she opens up about balancing the demands of a distinguished medical career with the joys and responsibilities of personal life. Dr. Solomon's insights offer a roadmap for harmonizing professional aspirations and personal well-being. Tune in to uncover her sage advice on embracing the integration of pursuing a promotion while maintaining your commitment to a robust personal and family life. To learn more, visit: https://facultyfactory.org/ 

We the discuss the use of wide field OCT angiography in the management of diabetic retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion, and pediatric retinal disease with Dr. Amir Kashani, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Dr Fasika Woreta is a professor at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA and she is director of their ophthalmology residency training program. She also has a deep expertise in ocular trauma and open globe injuries. Our podcast today covers the topics of ophthalmology residency training in the USA, including pearls to match into the program of your choice, surgical learning, and dealing with ocular trauma. There are some great learning points in this podcast and I am sure that you will enjoy the entire hour. 

In this episode, Dr. Kaleem talks with Dr. Jennifer Thorne about uveitis (inflammation of the eye) and how it can lead to glaucoma. Jennifer Thorne, M.D., Ph.D., is the Cross Family Professor of Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute, where she is also chief of the Division of Ocular Immunology

We discuss various strategies for treatment pauses in management of neovascular AMD, differences between bevacizumab and aflibercept in patients who can be successfully paused, and intra ocular biomarkers that may identify eyes in which treatment may be successful paused with Dr. Akrit Sodhi, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Wilmer Eye Institute.

I want to start this episode by thanking Jim Livengood for making this episode happen. Jim, who is the Assistant Director of Development at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Medicine, reached out to me and said that our community must hear from Michael and Megan. Michael Hibler is Executive Director of Development for the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins and Megan Ward is Director of Development for the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Jim said, “Some of my colleagues recommended seeing if it might be possible to have both Michael and Megan come speak with you as “co-guests.” They work very closely together, and you might get a better feel for how their partnership captures the higher-level big picture stuff and maybe some of the more in-the-trenches aspects of this type of work.” Thank you, Jim- because this episode is dynamic and authentic in a way that can't be planned or staged. We talk about the true meaning of being mission driven, Understanding the complex nature of the healthcare center, goal setting, retention, hiring tips, team building, and so much more! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/devdebrief/support

  Join Michael in his discussion with Sandy Greenberg as they discuss his memoir, Hello Darkness, My Old Friend, How Daring Dreams and Unyielding Friendship Turned One Man's Blindness Into An Extraordinary Vision For Life which recounts how he was blinded at age 19 and, against all odds, and with the help of Art Garfunkel, Sandy graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University, was a Marshall Fellow at Oxford University, and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University and went on to have a most remarkable career. Guest Sandy Greenberg Blinded at nineteen, Sanford D. Greenberg graduated from Columbia University (Phi Beta Kappa) and, following a Marshall Scholarship at Oxford, received his M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard and M.B.A. at Columbia. He was a White House Fellow under Lyndon B. Johnson and later chaired the federal Rural Healthcare Corporation and served on the National Science Board. His career as an entrepreneur and investor began when he invented, of necessity, a speech-compression machine for those who need to listen and absorb large volumes of printed matter. He subsequently founded several enterprises, including a company that produced specialized computer simulators and the first database tracking antibiotic resistance globally. A Johns Hopkins University and Medicine Trustee Emeritus, Sandy is chairman of the Board of Governors of its Wilmer Eye Institute and founder, along with his wife, Sue, of the Sanford and Susan Greenberg Center to End Blindness at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute, the only facility in the world devoted solely to ending blindness for everyone, forevermore. In a December 2020 ceremony streamed worldwide, Sandy and Sue awarded the initial Greenberg Prizes: $3 million in aggregate to those researchers who have made the greatest progress toward ending blindness for all mankind. Host Michael Zeldin Michael Zeldin is a well-known and highly-regarded TV and radio analyst/commentator. He has covered many high-profile matters, including the Clinton impeachment proceedings, the Gore v. Bush court challenges, Special Counsel Robert Muller's investigation of interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the Trump impeachment proceedings. In 2019, Michael was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he taught a study group on Independent Investigations of Presidents. Previously, Michael was a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served as Deputy Independent/ Independent Counsel, investigating allegations of tampering with presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport files, and as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, October Surprise Task Force, investigating the handling of the American hostage situation in Iran. Michael is a prolific writer and has published Op-ed pieces for CNN.com, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Hill, The Washington Times, and The Washington Post. Follow Michael on Twitter: @michaelzeldin Subscribe to the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/that-said-with-michael-zeldin/id1548483720

  Join Michael in his discussion with Sandy Greenberg as they discuss his memoir, Hello Darkness, My Old Friend, How Daring Dreams and Unyielding Friendship Turned One Man's Blindness Into An Extraordinary Vision For Life which recounts how he was blinded at age 19 and, against all odds, and with the help of Art Garfunkel, Sandy graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University, was a Marshall Fellow at Oxford University, and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University and went on to have a most remarkable career. Guest Sandy Greenberg Blinded at nineteen, Sanford D. Greenberg graduated from Columbia University (Phi Beta Kappa) and, following a Marshall Scholarship at Oxford, received his M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard and M.B.A. at Columbia. He was a White House Fellow under Lyndon B. Johnson and later chaired the federal Rural Healthcare Corporation and served on the National Science Board. His career as an entrepreneur and investor began when he invented, of necessity, a speech-compression machine for those who need to listen and absorb large volumes of printed matter. He subsequently founded several enterprises, including a company that produced specialized computer simulators and the first database tracking antibiotic resistance globally. A Johns Hopkins University and Medicine Trustee Emeritus, Sandy is chairman of the Board of Governors of its Wilmer Eye Institute and founder, along with his wife, Sue, of the Sanford and Susan Greenberg Center to End Blindness at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute, the only facility in the world devoted solely to ending blindness for everyone, forevermore. In a December 2020 ceremony streamed worldwide, Sandy and Sue awarded the initial Greenberg Prizes: $3 million in aggregate to those researchers who have made the greatest progress toward ending blindness for all mankind. Host Michael Zeldin Michael Zeldin is a well-known and highly-regarded TV and radio analyst/commentator. He has covered many high-profile matters, including the Clinton impeachment proceedings, the Gore v. Bush court challenges, Special Counsel Robert Muller's investigation of interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the Trump impeachment proceedings. In 2019, Michael was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he taught a study group on Independent Investigations of Presidents. Previously, Michael was a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served as Deputy Independent/ Independent Counsel, investigating allegations of tampering with presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport files, and as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, October Surprise Task Force, investigating the handling of the American hostage situation in Iran. Michael is a prolific writer and has published Op-ed pieces for CNN.com, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Hill, The Washington Times, and The Washington Post. Follow Michael on Twitter: @michaelzeldin Subscribe to the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/that-said-with-michael-zeldin/id1548483720

We discuss how new developments in imaging and therapeutics have impacted the treatment of sickle cell retinopathy with Dr. Adrienne Scott, Professor of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins and the Wilmer Eye Institute.

Dagny Zhu, MD, and Laura M. Periman, MD, talk with Andrea L. Kossler, MD, Cherie A. Fathy, MD, MPH, and Bonnie A. Henderson, MD, about the incredible accomplishments of female authors in ophthalmology journals, ways to encourage growth and limit disparities and more. Welcome to another episode of Mend the Gap :12 The topic :18 Welcome Dr. Fathy 54 Welcome Dr. Kossler 1:26 Welcome Dr. Henderson 2:27 Welcome Dr. Periman 3:24 Discussing Dr. Fathy's study on female authorship in ophthalmology journals 4:06 Female authorship trends; has there been improvement? 8:31 Ways in which young people can navigate inequity early in their careers 10:56 Conscious decisions to ensure gender equity as part of an editorial board 12:40 Parity vs. proportional representation in publishing 33:25 Editorial board membership and women authorship percentage 16:51 Retracted peer reviewed journal findings; the power of speaking up against poor methodology 18:25 Fighting for proper recognition and growth opportunity in larger journal publishing; why are senior women hitting a ‘ceiling?' 24:21 The burden of growing home responsibilities during the pandemic; how can we overcome this added weight and potential burnout? 26:35 How did the pandemic affect publication numbers in general? 33:11 More support at home and in the workplace for everyone; getting rid of deciding between home and work 34:25 Do women spend more time with every patient? Finding more support in sharing the burden 36:39 The differences in male and female writing in published studies; advocating for yourself and knowing your self-worth 38:57 Final thoughts on the topic; advice and wisdom for young female specialists looking to publish and share their work 43:07 Thank you 46:39 We'd love to hear from you! Send your comments/questions to podcast@healio.com. Follow us on Twitter @Healio_OSN. Cherie A. Fathy, MD, MPH, is a Corneal Fellow at the Wilmer Eye Institute division of Cornea & External Disease at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. She can be reached on Twitter @CherieEyeMD. Bonnie A. Henderson, MD, is a Clinical Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, and the Associate Editor for the Journal of Refractive Surgery. Andrea L. Kossler, MD, is the Director of Oculoplastic Surgery & Orbital Oncology and an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University. She can be reached @KosslerMD on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Laura M. Periman, MD, is founder and director of DryEye Services and Clinical Research at Periman Eye Institute in Seattle, WA. She can be reached @Dryeyemaster on Twitter. Dagny Zhu, MD, is a cornea, cataract, and refractive surgeon and medical director and partner at NVISION Eye Centers in Rowland Heights, CA. She can be reached on twitter @DZEyeMD. Disclosures: Periman reports consulting for Allergan, Novartis and Sun Ophthalmics.

We discuss the two year results of a Phase I/II trial of a stem cell  implant for the treatment of geographic atrophy with Dr. Amir Kashani, Associate Professor, Wilmer Eye Institute.

Dr. Thomas V. Johnson III, M.D., Ph.D. (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/profiles/details/thomas-johnson) is a glaucoma specialist and the Allan and Shelley Holt Rising Professor in Ophthalmology at Wilmer Eye Institute, at Johns Hopkins University. He is also a member of the Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) Repopulation, Stem cell Transplantation, and Optic nerve Regeneration (RReSTORe) consortium (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/wilmer/research/storm/rrestore/index.html), an initiative focused on advancing translational development of vision restoration therapies for glaucoma and other primary optic neuropathies by assembling an international group of more than 100 leading and emerging investigators from related fields. Dr. Johnson received his BA (summa cum laude) in Biological Sciences from Northwestern University in 2005. As a Gates-Cambridge Scholar and an NIH-OxCam Scholar, he earned his PhD in Clinical Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2010. He completed his medical training (AOA) at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2014 and served as an intern on the Johns Hopkins Osler Medical Service prior to completing his ophthalmology residency and glaucoma fellowship at the Wilmer Eye Institute. Dr. Johnson's research interests are focused on understanding the pathophysiology of retinal and optic nerve neurodegenerative disorders, and on the development of neuroprotective and neuroregenerative therapies for these conditions. His doctoral thesis work evaluated intraocular stem and progenitor cell transplantation as a possible neuroprotective therapy for glaucoma. His research contributions have been recognized with a World Glaucoma Association Award nomination, the National Eye Institute's Scientific Director's Award, and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology's Merck Innovative Ophthalmology Research Award. He also founded and served as director of the Student Sight Savers Program, a program that provides vision screening services to low-income residents of Baltimore, and helps them obtain access to clinical ophthalmological care. Presently, Dr. Johnson is interested in the neurobiological processes that lead to retinal ganglion cell death and dysfunction in glaucoma and other optic neuropathies. In particular, he seeks to better understand the molecular mechanisms underlying axonal degeneration, dendrite retraction and afferent synapse loss, and cell body death in glaucoma. His goal is to utilize knowledge of these processes to develop targeted neuroprotective strategies to slow or halt RGC death and preserve vision for patients with glaucoma. He is also leading new investigations into the use of stem cell transplantation to achieve retinal ganglion cell placement, as a potential regenerative treatment for optic nerve disease, with a focus on anatomic incorporation of cell grafts, neurite growth and synapse formation, and electrophysiological retinal circuit integration.

The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions' Wilmer Eye Institute is the home of the Odd Fellows Professor. Several generations have passed since the first one and they have received millions from the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and they have accomplished amazing work! Corneal transplant surgery was pioneered here. Many other great advancements in medical science also have been made. Learn what the Odd Fellows have been helping to achieve as part of our mission!

**Dr. Constance Okeke received her undergraduate and medical degrees from Yale and trained in ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins. She completed her glaucoma fellowship training as a Heed Research Fellow at the prestigious Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of University of Miami. She became a clinician scientist under a National Institute of Health K12 grant at the Scheie Eye Institute of University of Pennsylvania, where she also earned a Master of Science degree in clinical epidemiology. She has practiced ophthalmology with a specialty in glaucoma and cataract surgery since 2001. Dr. Okeke single-handedly pioneered micro-invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) at Virginia Eye Consultants in the southern Virginia Hampton Roads region. In 2009, she was the first in the area to perform Trabectome surgery and was the first in the country to combine this advanced technology in glaucoma with the femtosecond laser, allowing the surgery to be performed without a blade. **Opthamologist Dr. Leslie Jones-Dr. Jones is an associate professor in the College of Medicine and serves as the residency program director and director of Glaucoma Services in the department. Dr. Jones completed her medical degree in 1996 and ophthalmology residency in 2000 at Howard University and Howard University Hospital, followed by a fellowship in glaucoma at Wills Eye Hospital, the country's oldest eye hospital located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.    Dr. Jones is the recipient of the American Glaucoma Society Clinician Scientist Award 2005. Her research focuses on the genetic epidemiology of glaucoma, the evaluation of current and innovative glaucoma medical and surgical therapies, and use of on-line simulation as an adjunct to traditional ophthalmic clinical skills training.

For our 100th episode, we get Amanda, Andrew and Ben together to reflect on their residency and fellowship training to discuss what they thought was important and what they think is actually important in training and for their rank list. These thoughts are our own, and do not reflect the opinions of any institution we have trained or worked at. Thank you to all of our supporters and listeners on the way to episode 100!    Amanda Redfern did her residency at Yale, her neuro-ophthalmology fellowship at the Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah, and is now faculty doing both neuro-ophthalmology and comprehensive ophthalmology at the Casey Eye Institute at OHSU. Andrew Pouw did his residency at Yale, his glaucoma fellowship at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and is now faculty at the University of Iowa. Ben Young did his residency at Yale, is currently doing his vitreoretinal surgery fellowship at the Kellogg Eye Center at the University of Michigan, and is signed to join the faculty at the Casey Eye Institute at OHSU.

Dr. V.K. Raju was born in Rajahmundry, AP, India. He is the founding patron member of AAPI. He is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at West Virginia University, Adjunct professor of Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University and director of the International Ocular Surface Society. He is also founder and president of The Eye Foundation of America, a non-profit organization dedicated to realizing a world without childhood blindness. The Eye Foundation of America has established two eye institutes in India. Since 1979, EFA has expanded its reach to over 25 countries, screened millions of patients, and provided hundreds of thousands of surgeries.

Dr. V.K. Raju was born in Rajahmundry, AP, India. He is the founding patron member of AAPI. He is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at West Virginia University, Adjunct professor of Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University and director of the International Ocular Surface Society. He is also founder and president of The Eye Foundation of America, a non-profit organization dedicated to realizing a world without childhood blindness. The Eye Foundation of America has established two eye institutes in India. Since 1979, EFA has expanded its reach to over 25 countries, screened millions of patients, and provided hundreds of thousands of surgeries.

In this episode, we chat with Dr. Tamara Fountain. Dr. Fountain is professor of ophthalmology at Rush University Medical Center and maintains a private practice in oculofacial plastic surgery in Chicago's northern suburbs. She grew up in Minneapolis where her dad was a commercial airline pilot and her mom a marketing executive. Dr. Fountain received her B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. After an internship in internal medicine at Pennsylvania Hospital, she completed her residency in ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins Hospital's Wilmer Eye Institute. Dr. Fountain pursued specialty training in plastic and reconstructive surgery around the eye at University of Southern California's Doheny Eye Institute before settling in the Chicago area to start her practice. Dr. Fountain is the 2021 president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) — at 32,000 members, the oldest and largest society of American and International Ophthalmologists in the world. Click here to watch her AAO president's acceptance speech. Her past service to AAO includes Secretary for Member Services, at-large member of the Board of Trustees and editorial board of its EyeNet magazine. She has served on the Young Ophthalmologist; Ethics; and Health Policy Committees and was part of the inaugural class of the AAO's flagship Leadership Development Program. Dr. Fountain was recently awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for service to the Academy. Dr. Fountain is Past-President of the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ASOPRS), having served as executive secretary and chair of both the thesis and oral exam committees in the past. She has also received the Orkan Stasior Leadership Award for service to the society. Dr. Fountain served for 15 years as a committee member and director for the Ophthalmic Mutual Insurance Company (OMIC) and was Chair of the Board of Directors 2014 and 2015. She is a past president of the Illinois Society of Eye Physicians and Surgeons (formerly Illinois Association of Ophthalmology) and has been involved in programming for both Women in Ophthalmology and the Chicago Ophthalmological Society. She served as chair of the Alumni Fund for Harvard Medical School 2016-2019.

On this episode you will meet V.K Raju, MD, FRCS, FACS Ophthalmologist, Regional Eye Associates President and Founder of Eye Foundation of America and Goutami Eye Institute.  Dr. Raju is also a Clinical Professor at West Virginia University, Adjunct Professor at GSL Medical School, Wilmer Eye Institute and John Hopkins University.  Dr. Raju shares his passion for helping people save their vision and what he has done to contribute to his dream of  everyone being able to have access to eye care.  To connect with Dr. Raju visit www.eyefoundationofamerica.org. Check out The Oh Hell No Podcast & get the information you need to live your best life!www.ohhellnopodcast.comFollow on Instagram  @theohhellnopodcast Tell us what you want to hear...fill out our questionnaire! https://forms.gle/pLHjHLtv1SkgHRpF9Shop Bent Beauty 25% off Coupon Code: OHHELLNO

Sandy lost his eyesight in 1961 from glaucoma while he was a student at Columbia. At that point, he promised God that he'd do everything he could for the rest of his life to make sure no one else should go blind — he has led a successful life full of purpose. Just days ago, Johns Hopkins Medicine's Wilmer Eye Institute established the Sanford and Susan Greenberg Center to End Blindness.  Sandy sheds light on the Center's drive to support the next generation of researchers who have high risk, high reward ideas but lack funding and mentorship.  The Center aims to raise $100 million and they have already secured half that amount. Sandy also shares fascinating anecdotes, including how his college roommate (music legend) Art Garfunkel would read to him when he lost his sight; his emotions as he wrote his book ‘Hello Darkness My Old Friend”; and his relentless pursuit of education at Columbia, Harvard and Oxford. If you want to hear a touching, personal story where optimism overcomes adversity and where purpose tackles blindness, this episode is for you.  Thank you for listening to The Do One Better Podcast. Please subscribe, follow and share with others. For information on nearly 150 episodes, please visit our website at Lidji.org  

Topic: Seeing in the Darkness   Guest: Sanford D. Greenberg   Bio:    Sanford D. Greenberg is Chairman of the Board of Governors of Johns Hopkins University's Wilmer Eye Institute, the largest clinical and research enterprise in ophthalmology in the United States.   He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine, which incorporates the School of Medicine and the Hospital.   He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Sue; they have three children and four grandchildren. In this inspirational discussion, we cover: 1. Family & Friends 2. Losing Vision/Gaining Insight 3. Academic Pedigree 4. A Young Man in the White House 5. Seeing the Good in Everything & Everyone 6. Building a Business 7. Johns Hopkins and Changing the World   And so much more!

Michael Hingson, shares his Keynote speech created on October 3 2019 at an event sponsored by San Joaquin County Office of Education, CEDR Systems help in Monte Ray, CA. There were nearly 1,000 people in attendance at this keynote address delivered by Mr. Hingson to kick off the 2019 Inclusion Collaborative conference. In this presentation, Mike Hingson discussed his life experiences as a student who happened to be blind. He discussed some of the challenges he faced as well as how he prepared to overcome them. As a major part of this talk and our inaugural podcast episode, Mike tells his story of emergency preparation and how he was able to use his knowledge and his unstoppable mindset to survive the terrorist attack on Tower One of the World Trade Center. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit: https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast we're inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson 01:19 I really am honored to be here. I am, I guess in a sense, a product of special education in California. Let me tell you a little bit about me. In all seriousness, I was born in 1950, February 24 1950. You can do the math. Yes, I'm 69. People say I don't sound it. So I'm very happy about that. And I hope that that continues for a long time. But I was born sighted. But I was born two months premature. And the result of that was that I was put in an incubator with a pure oxygen environment. You've probably heard something about what today is called retinopathy of prematurity, which back in the day, I don't where that expression came from, but it was called retro dentro fibro pleasure. It was something that was discovered and named by Dr. Arnold Patz at the Wilmer Eye Institute. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few years ago before he passed, and we discussed what was originally called rlf, which is now our LP, but the bottom line is, is I was put in an incubator, the retina malformed and I became blind after about two days. We didn't know that for a while. I certainly didn't know it, but my parents didn't know it. About four months after I was born, an aunt said to my mother, you know, he's not really reacting to sunlight. I wonder if there's something wrong with his eyes? Well, sure enough, we went to the hospital and the doctors eventually came out and said, PSC is blind, you can't see. And you should send him to a home because you shouldn't keep him with you. If you do, he will not be good for your family. He'll certainly make it harder for your older son who can see who was two years old, you should send him to home. My father had an eighth grade education. My mother had a high school diploma and they told the learning Medical Society in Chicago nuts, too, you were taking him home. The doctor said he'll never be able to contribute to society and they said sure he will. It doesn't matter if he's blind or not. What matters is what he learns. These people who certainly didn't have the the vast knowledge of the learned medical profession in Chicago, bucked the system, I did go home. I was born on the south side of Chicago. Michael Hingson 03:47 If we if we take geraldo rivera into account two blocks from Al Capone's private vault, but I was born in Chicago, I grew up there for five years, went to the candy store when I was old enough to do it with my brother and cousins, who lived next door every day and walked around the neighborhood and so on and did it just like anyone else. I never even thought about it because my parents didn't think about it. They were risk takers, although I'm sure they didn't think of it that way. But they were they let me go outside and be a part of the rest of the kids in the neighborhood and growing up. They although I didn't know it early on, were a part of a group of parents who fought for special education classes for blind kids see, there were a number of premature births. During the baby boomer era, it actually brought the average age of blind people down from 67 to 65. Because there were so many, but there were enough in Chicago, my parents fought with other parents for special education classes. Well, kindergarten starts at age of four in Chicago. And so at four years old, I went to Korea In the garden in a special class with a teacher who was going to teach me and a bunch of other blind kids something about school, I actually began to learn Braille in kindergarten. I remember I wish I still had it. I remember, she, in teaching me Braille said, the best way for you to learn Braille is to write something. I'm going to read you a story about nasturtiums. Anybody know how to spell illustrations, I don't remember. But I had to write the story down that was in what was called grade one or uncontracted Braille. I had learned grade two yet, but I learned the Braille alphabet in kindergarten, hello. And then my father was offered a job in Southern California and we moved to California, Palmdale, California. And the problem with moving to Palmdale, California was that there were no provisions at all for blind or any other kinds of kids with what we call today's disabilities, or special needs, or whatever you politically want to call it. I'm not really a great fan of political correctness. So let me be real blunt, I am blind, I'm not vision impaired, I don't have a visual handicap, I am blind. By the way, I am trying to help start a movement, what I am not is visually impaired. The last time I checked, being blind didn't have any effect on how you looked. So visually impaired really doesn't count. If you're going to do it, vision impaired is more accurate than visually impaired because I really probably would look the same. If I am blind or sighted. We'll deal with the glasses later. I normally don't wear glasses, but that's another story and we'll get to it. vision impaired I understand visually impaired really is ridiculous. But it's the term that people have used. So you need to help us change the habit. But in reality, I am blind. Let me define blind. A person is blind when they lose enough of their eyesight that they have to use. Let me rephrase that, that they will use alternative techniques to eyesight in order to accomplish tasks, whether it be reading or whatever, yes, you can get very thick lens glasses or CCTVs, and so on, to help a person use their eyesight to read, but they're blind by any standard of intelligence. If you think about it, they are blind, not that they don't have any eyesight, but they have to use alternative techniques. And they don't have to use eyesight. I have been in environments I've been involved in projects as an adult, where I've been in special education, schools where we've been discussing how to teach Braille reading and so on. And I've had teachers who would come up to me and talk about the fact that they have kids who are blind and kids who have some eyesight. They're legally blind, but not totally blind. Sally has some eyesight Johnny doesn't have any Sally gets to reprint Johnny has to read Braille. Michael Hingson 08:05 That attitude is so backward, or it should be considered backward. The problem is Sally may get to reprint, but she's going to have headaches, she's going to read very slow. And if Johnny gets to truly learn Braille, he's going to be reading at several 100 words a minute, while Sally is kind of poking along, and having headaches and not doing very well. I have no problem with children or adults using their eyes. If they have eyesight, I do have a problem with them not also having the opportunity to learn the techniques that blind people use. Because if they learn those techniques, then you they can use both worlds to live much more productive lives. And so for those of you who are special ed teachers, even if your children have some eyesight, and even if the parents resist, try to push back, they need to learn Braille. A lot of special education teachers have said to me well, but blind people don't need Braille anymore. It's passe. You can listen to books and so on. You've got recordings we've now got Of course, files and you can use synthetic speech to hear the books read. Yeah, listen to one of those books with synthetic speech and see how much you enjoy it. But But yes, it's available. But my question to any of those people is tell me why you still teach sighted kids to read print? My they could watch cartoons, they could watch TV? Why do they need to learn to read print? The bottom line is blindness isn't the problem that I face. The problem I face consists truly of the attitudes and misconceptions that people have about blindness and it still comes back down to the fact that in reality people think That blind people can't truly be as productive in society as people who can see. Ah, and I wanted to do something before we go on how many heroes special ed teachers? Let me just see. Alright, how many are HR people? All right, a few of you get it. So I'm going to stop right now and say for those of you who didn't clap, how many of you think it's bright when a lecturer asks you a question and they're blind that you raise your hands? And you prove my point. So the bottom line is blindness isn't the problem. There are so many people in the world who are blind who have accomplished every bit as much if not more than most people in society, because they've learned that eyesight isn't really the gating factor. The gating factor are our attitudes about blindness. Jacob Salatin was a cardiologist who didn't live a long life. I think he died at 36. He was in the early he lived in the early 1900s. He was blind. And he was one of the most famous heart doctors in the Chicago area. There's a book about him called the good doctor, you gotta try to find it and read it. It's fascinating read. There are so many others. Jacobus tenbroek, was the founder of the National Federation of the Blind. He was born in Canada, but lost his eyesight at the age of seven lived most of his life in the United States. Dr. Tim Brooke, was taught by Dr. Newell Perry in in Albany at the School for the Blind at that time, and learned that in fact, he could do whatever he chose to do blindness was the problem. Dr. Tim Brooke went through the standard education courses and eventually had I had taken lectureships in at the University of California at Berkeley, did his undergraduate work there, he wanted to go into law. But when he graduated, and expressed that interest, the school said, No, you can't because a blind person can't do that. You could get a degree in psychology, you can get your PhD in psychology. But you can't get a law degree because blind people can't do that way too much reading way too complicated. So Dr. Tim Britt bowed to the pressure and got his degree in psychology, and then was hired to teach at UC Berkeley. Michael Hingson 12:29 I don't remember the exact year but somewhere along the line, he was asked to chair the speech department at the University of California at Berkeley. Now Dr. Tim Brooke, who was by then married to his wife, Hazel was pretty bright guy and kind of guy. Dr. Hambrick, accepted the position and said to the entire university, I want faculty members to join my speech department. But if you're going to join this department, what you need to understand is that you have to undertake a discipline, different from your discipline of education. So if you're a physicist, for example, and you want to join my department, you got to do research on something other than physics, you can tie it back to physics, but you have to do something other than physics is your main effort of work in our department. Well, Dr. Turmeric was one of these guys who believed in practicing what he preached, what do you think that he decided to do his discipline on? Dr. temperate became one of the foremost constitutional law scholars of the 20th century. There are still many cases that use his treatise is on tort law. And many examples of his works on discrimination and so on, are used today. In 1940, he formed with others, the National Federation of the Blind, the largest organization of blind people, consumers in the United States. And we don't have time to go into a lot of his work. But the point is, it didn't matter that he was buying, he did get to law. And he did it in a roundabout way. But he did it in a way that the university had to accept. And they loved him for it, in fact that Dr. Tim Burke was one of the few people in California who has ever been asked by both political parties to run for the United States Senate. And that happened after senator Claire angle, had a stroke and and he obviously could not continue as a senator and passed away. Dr. Tamarack was asked by both parties to run and he refused. Because he was enjoying his work with the National Federation of the Blind. He was involved in forming the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley and so on and doing so much constitutional law work. He knew that's what he needed to do. blindness isn't the problem. And so the question that all of you need to consider is are you going to hold people back? Or are you going to truly embrace a positive philosophy That says bind people bind students can do whatever they choose. And we're going to challenge them just like we would challenge any other student. And we're going to challenge them to do the best that they can truly do. And we're going to help teach them what they need. And sometimes that's going to mean you need to do as much work to educate parents. Because parents are frightened. They don't know. They're victims. I won't say products. They're victims of the same society that has negative attitudes about blindness. And I know there's only so much you can do, but you can set the tone. All of you here, not just in special education, but all of you here can set the tone. To give you an example of the kinds of attitudes that I faced. We moved to Victorville California in 2014. Where do you live in Victorville? Where do you live? Okay, we live in Spring Valley lake. Yeah. Other side. We chose property and build a house on it. My wife happens to be in a wheelchair and it's been in a chair her whole life. So we, we knew that if you buy a house and modify it, it costs a lot of money. If you build a house, it doesn't cost anything to build in the accessibility. And we found a piece of property very close to the Victorville Spring Valley Lake Country Club. So we get to walk to breakfast, or to go to dinner when we want to go out to eat, which is great. Anyway, before we moved to Victorville, in 2013, my wife and I were in an IKEA store with a couple of other people. And this young 13 year old boy comes up to me and he says, I'm sorry. And I stood there for a second. I said, Well, what are you sorry about? Well, because you can't see. I didn't know this kid. But that was his attitude. And I probably didn't answer in the best way that I could. But I said, Well, I'm sorry that you can because you don't get what I get. Michael Hingson 17:05 And by that time, his mother saw that he was tying this blanket and called him away and told him that not bothered the blind man. But you know, the bottom line is, we're no different than anyone else. We don't have the disability that all of you house. You know, in the 1800s, Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb. Why did he do that? Because as we now understand, with the Americans with Disabilities Act, it was a reasonable accommodation for light dependent people who can't function in the dark. Michael Hingson 17:39 You light dependent people I know there are more of you than there are of me. But we're gonna get you in a dark alley one night, and we'll see if we can read. You know, again, it isn't. It isn't a blindness issue. I did go to college, I graduated I had several jobs that eventually led me to be in the World Trade Center on September 11 2001. I was there as the Mid Atlantic region sales manager for quantum Corporation, which was a fortune 500 computer company. I had been hired two years before to open an office for quantum in New York City. I was living back there because I had been transferred by another company from California to sell in New York City because I had been doing it by phone. And I made the case for the fact that we needed to do it on site. So I was asked to open an office because I had been recruited by quantum to do that. We opened the office on the 78th floor of tower one of the World Trade Center. The 78th floor is what's called a skylounge a sky lobby. That meant that elevators would go straight from floor one to 78 without stopping the World Trade Center. The way it was structured was that you could take elevators to go from floor one up to some number of floors but there were also direct elevators to floor 44 and floor 78. The 44th floor was where the cafeteria was the Port Authority cafeteria that everyone use 78 was the next jumping off point. You would then go to other elevators to go to other floors are you take the stairs, or in our case we were fortunate to have our office right on the 78th floor and on September 11 we were going to be holding some sales seminars to teach some of our resellers how to teach how to sell our products. I Arctic con they are excuse me quantum the company that worked for then artic con move me to the east coast but quantum work through a two tier distribution and sales model. So typically most of our products were sold to a few very large distributors and they in turn sign the smaller resellers and the major distributor we worked with Ingram micro wanted to make sure that their resellers knew how to sell our products. So they asked if we do the seminar and we set it up for of course September 11. By that time, I Had my fifth guide dog Roselle was that was a yellow lab. Roselle was also a dog with a great sense of humor, she loved to steal socks. She wouldn't eat them, she hid them. And I was warned by her puppy raisers that she'd like to do that. And she did. She stole my wife slippers once and hid them. And we had to find them. So in any case, we we in, Roselle and I were matched in 1999. And in 2001, she was very used to working in the World Trade Center with me, I had spent a lot of time when we started the office and started preparing to open the office, I had spent a great deal of time learning where everything in the World Trade Center was that I could possibly want to know about, I knew what was on most every floor, especially that would be a place where we might want to reach out and, and try to sell. I knew how to get around. I spent a lot of time studying emergency evacuation procedures. And almost every day when I went into the office, I remember thinking, if there's an emergency today, how am I going to get out? What am I going to do? And I made sure I knew the answers to those things. Because many times I would be in the office alone, nobody else would be there. Because I had a staff working for me great sales guys. And their job was to go out and sell and support their manager, right. So that was me. And my job was to be inside supporting them going on sales calls with them from time to time. But a lot of times I would be in the office alone, fielding their questions, helping them in any way that I could, working to make sure that I knew everything that they might need to know so that I could enhance them out in the field. In fact, every salesperson I ever hired, I said, Look, I know you're working for me. But I want you to understand that I view myself as a second person on your sales team. And what you and I need to do is to learn how we work together so I can add value to you and enhance what you do. My favorite example of that was with a guy named Kevin, who I hired. Michael Hingson 22:14 I really liked Kevin, because when we were doing the interview, I said to him like I did to everyone, tell me what you're going to be selling for us and how you're going to do it. Now the typical answer for most people was, well, you're selling tape drives, we're going to be selling the tape drives, I'm going to learn all about those. And I'm going to go off and tell people how to do it. And what what they need to know so that they can buy it. That's the typical answer. Kevin's answer was the only person who ever gave it and it was the answer I wanted to hear. The only thing I have to sell is me and my reputation. And I need your support. I won't do anything without telling you. But when we agree on something, I'm going to go sell me and through them will and through that we'll sell the products. But if they don't believe me, they're not going to be interested in our products. And I have to rely on you. What an answer. But it was the right answer truly. So one day Kevin comes into my office and he says, Hey, we have sales opportunity at Salomon Brothers. I said, Okay. He said, they want me to come out and talk about our products for a project they have, I'm not sure that our products will really be what they want. But they want us to come and talk about it. And they wanted me to bring my manager along a decision maker. I said, Okay, he said, so they don't know you. So I didn't tell him you're blind. Michael Hingson 23:51 So we got to the meeting. We entered the building right at 10 o'clock. We I wanted to arrive a minute or so late. I knew what Kevin meant. When he said I didn't tell him you're blind. Because we were going to hit him right between the eyes with that. So about 1001 we're walking down the hallway here, a bunch of people talking a few and we're going where are these quantum people in all that we walk in the door and the room goes totally silent. We stand there for a moment. And I turned to Kevin, I said, So where are we going to do this? He says all right up here in the front. So we went up to the front I had a laptop projector in hand on my laptop also opened up the cases took things out and says where do we plug this stuff in? And he says I'll take it and he plugs it in. And meanwhile, I'm standing there facing this audience. And so I turn to my left. And I said to the person sitting right in the front row on the corner who I heard as we walked by, I said, Hi my name is Mike Kingston, who are you? Nothing. Really, who are you? Nothing. So I kind of walk over near him and I'm looking straight at him. And I said I heard you when I walked by, who are you? So finally he said, Oh, my name is Joe. I said, Good, glad to meet you. And when I shook his hand, I said, you know, doesn't matter whether I'm blind beside, I know you're there. I don't know a lot about you yet, but I'm gonna learn about you. So tell me, Joe, why are you interested in our tape drives? I didn't ask if he was interested. I asked him why? Because I knew from my Dale Carnegie sales course you don't answer ask yes or no questions unless you really know the answer. But you don't ask yes or no questions. That doesn't give you a lot of information. So Joe, kind of hemmed and hawed and finally gave me an answer to that. And then I said, So tell me a little bit more about the project, if you will. And he did. And then I went to the next person, and I went around the room. And I talked to those people, learning a lot, including our product wasn't gonna do anything to help these people. But we were there. So we did the presentation. I did the presentation, I had a script, I did the PowerPoint show. And on my script was in incredible detail. And it said, everything that I needed to know including even on the screen, what picture appeared where so I could point over my shoulder and say, on the left side of your screen, you'll see the A TLP 3000, which holds 16 tape drives and 326 tape cartridges, we use a special technology called prism technology, our system is very modular, we can actually connect five of those drives together five of those libraries together, so that you could have a total of 80, tape drives, and 16 120. Tape cartridges, all in one big library. And on the right side of your screen, you can see the ATL p 1000, which is a small single drive library with 30, tape drives, and some things like that, and talk on and on and on. And we went off and we talked and all that, and we did the whole show. And then I said at the end, and as you can see our product won't do what you want. But I wanted you to know about it, because I want you to understand what different systems can do. Now let me tell you a little bit about who has a product that will help you. My bosses would shoot me if they heard me say that. But it's the ethical thing to do. And so we talked about that a little bit. And then we ended the day and people will come up to me and we chatted some and a couple came up and they said we're really angry at you. And I said Why? He said Well, usually when people come in, they do these presentations, we just kind of fall asleep and vege out, you know, because they just keep talking and talking. But you never looked away and looked at the screen. You kept looking at us, we forgot you were blind. We didn't dare fall asleep. And I said, Well, you could have fallen asleep. The dog was down here. You may think he's asleep, but he's taken notes. Anyway, we ended and we went out and Kevin said, How can you know so much about our products? And and you knew some of these later things that I don't know. And I said, Well, did you read the product bulletin that came out last week? Well, no, I really didn't have time. I said, there you go. message received and understood. But about two weeks later, the Solomon people called back and they said, We really do appreciate all that you did and coming out and talking with us. And we have something to tell you. And that is that there's another project. Because of everything that you taught us, we know that your product is perfect for it, we're not even putting it out for bid, just give us a price. That's the ethics of it. That's the way to sell. Michael Hingson 28:31 And that's what we did. So, in any case, I spent a lot of time learning what to do in the case of an emergency, so that I could get out when necessary, because I knew that people like Kevin and the rest of our sales and support staff would be out working a lot of times. And so I knew everything that I could possibly know about what to do in any kind of an unusual situation. On September 10, I went home as usual, I took my laptop, which is what I used in the office, I backed up my data at home. I'm a good Scout, I know how to be prepared, and sometimes I would work at home. So I always made sure I had my data backed up at home as well as on the job. By the way, speaking of scouts as long as I'm bragging, I happen to be an Eagle Scout with two palms and vigil in the order of the arrow. blindness isn't the issue. Michael Hingson 29:33 A lot of fun. I had some great scout leaders who accepted me for who I was and that made all the difference. In any case. I backed up my data later that night we went to bed and about 1230 Roselle started nudging me. Now Roselle was afraid of thunder. And of course we had rain storms in New Jersey. We lived in Westfield, great town. Again there we build our house that was a two story house. We put an elevator in So we could go to the two stories and the basement. So we had this nice elevator and nice house. But Roselle now was bugging me at 1230. And I knew that there must be a storm coming. She usually gave us about a half hour warning because she could sense it, as we know because the static charge would build up on her for as well as the fact that she probably heard the thunder before we do and so Rosa was shaking and shivering and panting and so I took Roselle Karen, my wife was awake by that time and we both agree there must be a storm coming. So we went downstairs to my basement to our basement. I put Roselle under my desk and I sat down and decided to try to do a little bit of work that I was going to do the next day before our sales seminars began. I turned on the stereos and had a pretty loud hopefully masking some of the thunder sounds. But God has a sense of humor. I guess. The storm literally came right over our house. It sounds like bombs going off outside and pours it Roselle was just shaking. At least she didn't see the lightning because she was under the desk. We were there until about two o'clock. Then the storm left. And so I went back up and we got three more hours asleep and then got up to go into the office. I didn't think it was a bad sign of things to come. Some people have said well, didn't you get the warning? No. So we got to the office at 740. And there was a guy there he just pulled up with a cart. He was from the Port Authority cafeteria, he was bringing the breakfast that we ordered for the early arrivals. And for the first group of seminar people we had 50 people scheduled during the day to come to one of four seminars. by eight o'clock. Some of our distribution people from Ingram micro arrived along with David Frank from our corporate office, David was in charge of the distribution sales, then he was there to help the Ingram micro people talk about pricing. I was there because of course I'm the technical contact the guy who would be on site in New York all the time. David was from New York, but he transplanted to California. And so so he was there and I was there we were the two quantum people, the Ingram micro people were there for about five Ingram micro people, six, actually, I guess. And then one of them decided about quarter after eight or 830, to go downstairs and to wait in the lobby, and a score our distribution people to where they needed to go. The last thing we needed to do before the seminars or to start was to create a list of all the people who would be attending that day, if you wanted to go to the World Trade Center and go up and see anyone at that time, because of the bombing in 1993, you either had to have your name on a previously prepared list that was created on stationery from the company where you were going. So they could check your name off after looking at your ID, or they would have to call us and say is so and so allowed to come up. We didn't want to have 50 phone calls. So it was easier to create the list. David and I finished the list and at 845 in the morning I was reaching for stationery to create the list and print it out when suddenly we felt a muffled thump. And the building sort of shuttered a little a minor kind of explosion not overly loud. And then the building began to tip. As I'm tipping my hand and it just kept tipping and tipping and tipping. We actually moved about 20 feet. Michael Hingson 33:37 The building kept tipping. David said What's going on? I said I don't know what do you think? I said do you think it was an explosion? You said it didn't sound like it? He said was it an earthquake? I said no. Because the building's not shaking from side to side or anything it's going in one direction. Now I knew that building the towers were made to buffet and winds although I wasn't really thinking about that at the time. But the building kept tipping and hey I grew up in Palmdale right building musco Santa doorway, so I went and stood in the doorway to my office. Yeah, a lot of good that's really going to do your 78 floors up but hey, there I was. David was just holding on to my desk. Roselle was asleep under my desk. And finally, David, I say goodbye to each other because we thought we were about to take a 78 floor punch to the street. Then the building slowed down and it stopped. And it came back the other way. And I remember as soon as the building started to move back, I let out my breath. I didn't even realize I was holding it. The building eventually got to be vertical again. As soon as it did, I went into my office and I met my guide dog Roselle coming out from under my desk. I took her leash and told her to heal, which meant to come around on my left side just like Alamo did good boy, he gets a reward for sitting and Roselle came and sat and was just wagging your tail And about that time, the building Straight down about six feet. Because as we know, the expansion joints went back to their normal configuration. We didn't really think about that at the time, but that's what they were doing. As soon as that occurred, David let go of the desk, turned around and looked around outside and said, Oh my god, Mike, there's fire and smoke above us. There are millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside the window. We got to get out of here right now. We can't stay here. I said. Are you sure? Yeah, I can see the fire above us. And there millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside our windows. I heard stuff, brushing the windows, but I didn't know what it was. Now I did. And our guests began to scream the ones that were in eating breakfast, waiting for the seminar to start, they started moving toward our exit and I kept saying slow down, David. No, we got to get out of here right now. The buildings on fire. Slow down. David will get out. Just be patient. No, we got to get out of here right now. We can't stay here. For me, emergency preparedness training kicked in. Because I, as you know, kept thinking What do I do? Emergency Well, here it was. Then David said the big line Mike, we got to get out of here. And I said slow down. He says no, you don't understand you can't see it. The problem wasn't what I wasn't seeing. The problem was what David wasn't seeing when I tell you about Rozelle with thunderstorms. She wasn't doing any of that she was wagging her tail and Jani and going, who woke me up. She wasn't giving any fear indication at all. And so I knew that whatever was occurring, we weren't imminently immediately threatened. So I finally got David to focus and say, get our guests to the stairs and start them down. And he did. While he was doing that, I called Karen, my wife and said, there's been an emergency and something happened. We're going to be evacuating, I'll let you know later What's going on? And she said, what's, what is what is going on? I said, Oh, no. The airplane hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building. Afterward, when reporters started interviewing me. They said, Well, of course you didn't know what happened because you couldn't see it. I said, Wait a minute, helped me understand. The plane hit on the 96th floor roughly. On the other side of the building from us the last time I heard there really wasn't such a thing as x ray vision. None of us knew blindness had nothing to do with you can't justify that. None of us knew. And on the stairs, none of us knew. And we were with a whole bunch of people on the stairs. Anyway, David came back. I just disconnected with Karen. We swept the offices to make sure we didn't miss anyone. We tried to power down some equipment, didn't really have time to do a lot of that and we just left a went to the stairs and started down. Almost immediately I began smelling an odor and it took me a little while to recognize that what I was smelling was burning jet fuel. I traveled a lot through airports about 100,000 miles a year. So I knew that smell but I didn't associate it with the World Trade Center. Now suddenly, I smelled it and I recognize it finally after about four floors, and I observed it to others who said yeah, that's what it is. You're right. Michael Hingson 38:12 So we kept walking down the stairs. Got down about 10 floors and then from above us we heard Brian victim coming through move to the side let us by the stairs were wide enough that you could walk like two or three abreast but we moved to the outer wall stood facing in and a group of people passed us and David described how they were surrounding a woman who is very badly burned over the upper part of her body, probably from the little vapor droplets that can busted as she was standing in front of an elevator. We then started walking again and then we heard it again burned record coming through moving to the side, let us buy and another group pass us with someone who is burn. As David said even worse, we knew it had to be pretty bad above us. We kept walking down some conversation. We got to about the 50th floor David wasn't talking very much. And suddenly he said Mike we're gonna die. We're not going to make it out of here. And I just said stop it David if Roselle and I can go down the stairs. So can you see I took that secret teacher course that that all of you as teachers have never told anybody about because you're sworn to secrecy, right? voice 101 where you learn to yell at students, right? And so I literally very deliberately spoke very harshly to David. And he told me that that brought him out of his funk. But then David made a decision, which I think is still one of the most profound and incredible decisions and follow throughs that I experienced that day. David said, You know, I got to keep my mind on it on what's going on. But I don't I don't want to think about this. I want to think about something else. So I'm going to walk the floor below you and shout up to you everything that I see on the stairs, okay. And I said Sure, go ahead. Did I need David to do that? No. Right, you're going down the stairs, what can you do, but it was okay. And I'm glad to have more information. I love information. And so I thought it was fine. But the reason that I thought that what David did was so incredible will come up in a moment. So suddenly I'm on the 49th floor when I walked down the floor and David walked ahead of us and suddenly, Hey, Mike, I'm on the 48th floor, everything is good here going on down. I'm on 49 go into 48 get to 48 David 47th floor all clear. What David was doing, although he was shouting up to me, he was providing information that hundreds or 1000s of people on the stairwell could hear. He gave everyone a focus point. Anyone who could hear him knew that somewhere above them or below them on the stairs, someone was okay. And that it was clear and they could keep going. He gave everyone something to focus on. And I think that that was the one thing more than anything else. That had to keep more people from possibly panicking like he started to do on the stairs. We didn't have any other incidents that that after David started shouting 46 floor all clear. Hey, I'm on 45 everything is good here. 44th floor This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is not stopping going on down. Michael Hingson 41:31 And we continue down the stairs. We eventually got to the 30th floor. And when we did actually David did and I was at 31 he said I see I see firefighters coming up the stairs. We're going to have to let them by everybody moved to the side while I went down to where he was and they hadn't got there yet. I said what do you see? And he said, Well I just see him coming up the stairs they got heavy backpacks on and they're carrying shovels oxygen cylinders by our axes the first guy gets to us and he stops right in front of me and when let me bike goes hey buddy you okay? You know that's how you sound in New York right? Hey buddy. Yo, in New Jersey, it's yo and I said yeah I'm fine well that's really nice we're gonna send somebody down the stairs which should make sure you get out and I said you don't need to do that I'm good. What's really nice we're gonna send somebody which anyway I said Look, I just came down from the 78th floor here we are at 30 I came down 48 floors I'm really good. Wow, it's really nice. We're gonna send somebody down the stairs which I said Look, I got my guide dog Roselle here and and everything is good. We're doing fine. Now what a nice dog and he reaches out and he starts petting Roselle. It wasn't the time to give him a lecture don't pet a guide dog and harness. But I'll give you the lecture dump had a guide dog and harness, dog and harness do not come up Don't say name don't interact with even don't make eye contact dog in harness is working harness is symbol of work. Don't distract dog. If you do, I will first correct the dog before I deal with you. Because rose Alamo should know better. He is still a puppy though. And dogs love to interact. And so when you start trying to talk with them, they're going to talk to you, they're going to try and then I have to bring him back and focus him. I don't want to do that. So don't deal with a guide dog and harness. Now as I said before, when we're out selling books later harness will come off, and you're welcome to visit with him all you want. Of course, I'd love you to buy books too. And take business cards because if any of you know anyone who needs a public speaker, whether it's in your district or or their organizations, I would love you to to let me know or let them know, because this is what I do. And I really would love your help to do more of this to educate people. We can talk more about that later. Any case wasn't the time to give them that lecture and it wasn't the time to say to the fire person. blindness isn't the problem. It's your attitude, you know, so I finally just played the card. Look, I got my friend David over here David can see we're working together okay. And he turns to David here with him. David goes yeah, leave him alone. He's good. He says okay, and he goes, then he pets Roselle a few more times. She gives him a few more kisses. And he goes on up the stairs. Probably just having received the last unconditional love he ever gotten his life. Michael Hingson 44:21 And I remember that. Every time I say it. I don't know I never heard whether they survived or not. But don't know that he did. But he was gone. Other firefighters were coming up 50 men and women pastors going up the stairs to fight that fire. Several of us on one or more occasions said can we help you guys and they just said no Your job is to go down and get out ours is to go deal with this. We got it. David we assumed a scouting position and we kept going down the stairs. Finally David said well at about the 26th floor by the way Somebody started passing up water bottles. Roselle was panting I was getting pretty warm with all the the massive human bodies. So we we gave Roselle some water somebody passed up bottles and David brought one up and he took some drinks I took some drinks we gave Roselle some we made our hands into kind of cups and so everybody got some water and then we continued and finally he got to the first floor. I was on four second floor two and he said hey Mike, the water sprinklers are on here you're going to have to run through a curtain and water to get out of the stairwell. And the water was running to create a barrier so fire wouldn't get in or out depending on if it ever broke out. He was gone. I got to the first floor picked up the harness results forward hopper speed up, which is the command to give. we raced through this torrential downpour of water and came out the other end soaking. But we were in the lobby of tower one. Normally a very quiet building and quiet lobby office type environment. But now people were shouting dunk on that way. Don't go outside go this way. megaphones don't go over their gun this way. Go to the doors into the rain, main part of the complex don't go outside. They didn't want anyone going out because that would have put them right below where people were jumping. We didn't know that at the time. So this guy comes up to David and me. And he says, Hey, I'm with the FBI. I'll get you where you need to go. And I'm sitting there going the FBI. What did I do? I didn't do it. sighs I'm not talking to anybody about McGarrett from five Oh, I didn't think that. Anyway, I said What's going on? He said no time to tell you just come with us. So he ran us through the whole complex and out a door after going up an escalator by borders, books as far away from the towers as we could be. And we made it outside. And we were told to leave the area. But David looked around and said, Mike, I see fire in tower two. I said what? Yeah, there's fire in the second tower. Sure. Yeah. And I went, what's going on? We had no idea where that came from. We didn't feel thing in our building when we were going down the stairs. So we thought perhaps it was just fire that jumped across from our building when the building tipped it was mashing pointed toward tower to we didn't know. So we left the area we walked over to Broadway, we walk north on Broadway and eventually we got to Vesey street where we stopped because David says see the fire and tower to really well. We're only 100 yards away. I want to take pictures. So we stopped. He got out his camera. I got out my phone. I tried to call Karen. I couldn't get through the circuits were busy because as we now know everyone was everyone was saying goodbye to loved ones. But I couldn't get through to Karen. I had just put my phone away and David was putting his camera away when a police officer to get out of here it's coming down and we heard this rumble that quickly became this deafening roar I described the sound is kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. You could hear glass tinkling and breaking metal clattering in is white noise sound as tower to collapse it pancake straight down. David turned and ran. He was gone. Everyone was running different directions. I bodily lifted, Roselle turned 180 degrees and started running back the way we came. Come on was I'll keep going good girl keep going. We ran got to Fulton Street, turned right onto Fulton Street. And now we're going west. At least we had a building between us and the towers. I ran about maybe 100 feet or so. And suddenly there was David. It turns out we had both run in the same direction. And then he realized that he had just left me he was going to come back and try to find me. But I found him first and he started apologizing. I said David, don't worry about the buildings coming down. Let's keep going and we started to run. And then we were engulfed in the dust cloud all the dirt and debris in the fine particles of tower two that were collapsing that we're that we're coming down. And so David and I were now engulfed in this cloud. He said he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his face. I could feel with every breath I took stuff going through my mouth and through my nose into my throat and settling in my lungs. That's how thick it was. I could feel it settling in my lungs. Michael Hingson 49:19 So we kept running and we knew we had to get out of that. So I started telling Roselle right? Right with hand signals and voice I don't know whether she could hear me and because of the dust. I don't even know if she could see me. Right? Roselle right? But I was listening for an opening on my right and the first opening I heard I was gonna go into it. And obviously Roselle didn't know what I want because when that first opening appeared, I heard it but she immediately turned right she took one step and she stopped and she wouldn't move. Connor was I'll keep going, she wouldn't move. And I realized there must be a reason. So I stuck a handle on a wall and stuck out a foot and realized and discovered that we were at the top of a flight of stairs. She had done her job perfectly. We walked down two flights of stairs and found ourselves in little arcade, a lobby of a subway station. We continued to well, we just stayed there for a while. And then this guy comes up. He introduced himself as Lou, an employee of the subway system. And he took us down to the lower levels of the subway station to an employee locker room. And when we got to the locker room, there were benches there were about eight or nine of us who were in the lobby at that point, that little arcade, there were other people that he had already escorted down. So we were all in this employee locker room, there was a water fountain, there were benches, there was a fan. We were all hacking and trying to get rid of stuff from our lungs, and not saying much what the heck was going on. None of us knew. We were there for a few minutes. And then a police officer came and he said, the air is clear up above you're gonna have to, to leave and and go out of here right now. So we followed him up the stairs, he went to that little arcade lobby where we had been, and then he went on up the stairs. He said the air is a little bit better up there. And we just followed him. And finally we went outside after getting to the top. David looked around, and he said, Oh my god, Mike. There's no tower to anymore. And I said, What do you see? And he said, All I see are pillars of smoke where the tower was it's gone. Pretty sure. Yeah, it's gone. We stood there for a moment. And then we just turn and continue to walk west on Fulton Street. We walked for about maybe a quarter of a mile. And we were in this little Plaza area. Just still trying to figure out what was happening when suddenly we heard that freight train waterfall sound again, and we knew it was tower one collapsing, David looked back and saw it. And he saw a dust cloud coming toward us again, it was still pretty concentrated. So we kind of ran to the side to get out of most of it hunkered down behind a wall and just waited until everything passes by and the wind subsided, the noise stop. And then we stood up. Turn, David looked around and said, Oh my god, Mike. There's no World Trade Center anymore. I said what do you see? And he said, fingers of fire and flame hundreds of feet tall and pillars of smoke, the towers are gone. We're gone in three hours before less than three hours before just to do our job. But now in the blink of an eye, it was gone. No clue why we stood there for a moment. And then I decided I better try to call Karen and this time I got through. And after some tears on both sides of the phone, she told us how to aircraft had been crashed into the towers went into the Pentagon and a fourth was still missing over Pennsylvania. We walked up toward Midtown and eventually got near Midtown Manhattan to the subway station and the train station at 33rd and sixth and seventh Avenue. And David and I set parted and went different ways. I wanted to get back home to Westfield he wanted to get up to the Upper East Side to his sister's house, which is where he was staying when I was back in New York. And so we went our separate ways. Michael Hingson 53:42 And never, never thinking that that was the end. And a lot of ways. We did try to reopen the office elsewhere, but didn't get a lot of support from the company and decided that, for me, it was time to do something different. The reason I decided that was that the day after September 11, the 12th. Karen said you want to call the folks from Guide Dogs for the Blind. That's where you've gotten all your guide dogs got to let them know that you were in the trade center and got out because eventually they would remember it a number of them had visited us in our office, because it's such a cool view. I don't know how to tell you about the view so much other than to say we were so high up that on the Fourth of July, people would go to our office to look down on the fireworks displays. So I called them and talked to a number of people including their public information officer, Joanne Ritter, who wanted to do a story and I said sure, and she said, You know, you're probably going to get request to be on TV. What TV show Do you want to start with? So yeah, I'm not really thinking about that sort of stuff, right? kind of still in shock. So I just said Larry King Live. Two days later on the 14th. We had the first of five interviews with Larry King. And so we started doing that and eventually Guide Dogs asked me to come and be a public spoke serve their public spokesperson. And I was being asked by that time to travel and speak and tell my story. And people said, we want to hire you. Being a sales guy, I'm sitting there going, you want to hire me just to come and talk. That sounds a whole lot more fun than working for quantum. And we wanted to move back to California anyway. So I accepted Guide Dogs position, and I've been speaking ever since. Other things have happened along the way very quickly, including I was asked in 2015, by a startup company, AIRA, a IRA to join their advisory board and AIRA makes a product called a visual interpreter. It consists of an app on a smartphone. And it may also include smart glasses with a high resolution video camera. And what I wrote allows me to do is to contact an agent who has been hired and vetted and trained to describe whatever the camera sees, and whatever information I need so they can help with an accessible websites. They helped me put together products when the instructions were all visual pictures, the Chinese have learned from IKEA, and in so many other ways that literally now, any visual information becomes available with AIRA. I just really want to quickly show you like hierro and we can we can talk more about AIRA this afternoon in the the session at 345. I want you to see what AIRA does. So hopefully AIRA 56:37 connecting to agent Kenyon starting video we're gonna wait. Oh, Michael, thanks for calling. I read this is Kenyon. What would you like to do today? Michael Hingson 56:48 I'd like you to tell me what you see. AIRA 56:50 I see a very large crowd, right? Michael Hingson 56:54 Yeah, what else? AIRA 56:56 podium to mic. And it looks like a very large auditorium, see some doors toward the back exit signs, and very captive crowds. Michael Hingson 57:09 Here's the real question. Do they look like they're awake? AIRA 57:16 They are now. So we're good. Michael Hingson 57:21 So tell them what you do. AIRA 57:26 I assist those who are sight challenged with independence on a daily basis. We allow them to be more independent in their daily lives to get around with minimal help. And we basically help them to see Michael Hingson 57:41 how do you do that? What do you do? 57:44 We use descriptives we use, we call in as we did now. And we ask them, What would you like to do and we assist them with whatever their task may be for that day, whether it be for reading, navigation, calling an Ubers, travel, descriptives, you name it, we can do it. We do that through either, believe you're using the glasses right now. We have horizon glasses we use and then or through technology in the phones, we use remote cameras, to help them to see the world around them and describe it to them. And to help them navigate through Michael Hingson 58:17 it to real quick stories. One, one IRA agent helped someone once while they were on an African safari to describe what was going on. But my favorite IRA story is that a father once wanted to find out if his daughter was really doing her homework. So he activated IRA. And he went in with the agent and said, How are things going? And she said, Oh great. I'm almost done with my homework. And the Irish said Irish and said, No, she's playing a game on her iPhone. AIRA 58:48 Yes, we also bust children whenever we need to. Michael Hingson 58:54 Kenny, I appreciate your time. I'm going to go ahead and finish chatting with these folks. But appreciate you taking the time to chat today. AIRA 59:02 You bet. Thanks for calling AIRA. Michael, we'll talk to you again soon. Michael Hingson 59:04 Thank you, sir. Bye. And that's what and that's what I read is all about. The whole the whole point is that I get access to all the information I otherwise don't have access to. Because ironically, in our modern technological world, sometimes it's actually becoming harder for me to get access to information. Too many websites are inaccessible and shouldn't be too many books may be scanned, but they're not put in a textual form that I have access to. There have been lawsuits over that. But the bottom line is that IRA creates access, or I should say it creates inclusion it gives me access to the information that I otherwise wouldn't have access to. So be glad to show that to any of you What I'd like to do is to end this now, with some words from Dr. Tim Brooke, that the person I mentioned earlier, this is part of a speech that he gave at the 1956 convention of the National Federation of the Blind in San Francisco. So it is a convention of blind people. But what I'm reading to you now could just as easily apply to any group. And I'm sure that Dr. Tim Burke intended it that way. And this is what he wrote. In the 16th century, john Bradford made a famous remark, which has ever since been held up to us as a model of Christian humility, and correct charity, and which you saw reflected in the agency quotations I presented earlier, seeing a beggar in his rags creeping along a wall through a flash of lightning in a stormy night, Bradford said, but for the grace of God, there go I compassion was shown. Pity was shown, charity was shown. Humility was shown. There was even an acknowledgment that the relative positions of the two could and might have been switched. Yet, despite the compassion, despite the pity, despite the charity, despite the humility, how insufferably arrogant there was still an unbridgeable gulf between Bradford and the beggar. They were not one but two, whatever might have been, Bradford thought himself Bradford, and the beggar a beggar one high, the other low one Why's the other misguided, one strong, the other weak, one virtuous, the other depraved. We do not and cannot take the Bradford approach. It is not just that beggary is the badge of our past, and is still all too often the present symbol of social attitudes toward us, although that is at least a part of it. But in the broader sense, we are that bigger, and he is, each of us, we are made in the same image. And out of the same ingredients, we have the same weaknesses and strengths, the same feelings, emotions, and drives. And we are the product of the same social, economic and other environmental forces. How much more constant with the facts of individual and social life, how much more a part of a true humanity to say, instead, there within the grace of God, do go I. And I want to leave you with that, because I think that sums it up as well as I can possibly do. We're all on the same world together. And you have the awesome responsibility to help children. And perhaps their parents grow, and truly become more included in society. So this afternoon, I'll be talking about the concept of moving from diversity to inclusion, and I'll tell you why choose that title. And I'll tell you now, when you watch television, you hear all about diversity. How often do you ever hear disabilities mentioned? You don't? Hollywood doesn't mention us. The candidates aren't mentioning us in all the political debates. Michael Hingson 1:03:46 Even though 20% of the population has some sort of a disability, not concluding politicians who have their own disabilities, but we want to go we need to demand and we ask your help to create a true inclusive society. I challenge you to do that. I hope we get to chat later. Come to the presentation this afternoon and come and see us. We'll be selling Thunder dog books, and you can visit with Alamo. And also again, if you know anyone else who needs a speaker, it's what I do, as you can tell, did you all feel you'll learn something today? vendors and everyone like Thanks very much, and I hope we get to chat some more. Thank you. Michael Hingson 1:04:43 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

In this episode of our Equity in Ophthalmology series, host Arhem Barkatullah sits down to chat with Dr. Bryn Burkholder from the Wilmer Eye Institute. Dr. Burkholder is the author of chapter 1 of the book, Women in Ophthalmology. (link: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030593346)

Dr. Jennifer Elisseeff is the director of the Translational Tissue Engineering Center, a collaboration between the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Wilmer Eye Institute. The lab develops new biomaterials, study stem cells and design new technologies for regenerative medicine. The goal of her lab is to engineer technologies to repair lost tissues. Her lab is examining hydrogels as a scaffold for tissue engineering. Hydrogels are ideal due to their high water content for nutrient and waste transport, and their ability to encapsulate cells and to implant in a minimally invasive manner. The lab is currently focused on developing synthetic-biological hydrogels with highly controlled physical properties and biological function. The discovery of human embryonic stem cells has created the possibility to regenerate any tissue from a single, totipotent cell population. Series: "Stem Cell Channel" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Education] [Show ID: 37017]

Dr. Jennifer Elisseeff is the director of the Translational Tissue Engineering Center, a collaboration between the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Wilmer Eye Institute. The lab develops new biomaterials, study stem cells and design new technologies for regenerative medicine. The goal of her lab is to engineer technologies to repair lost tissues. Her lab is examining hydrogels as a scaffold for tissue engineering. Hydrogels are ideal due to their high water content for nutrient and waste transport, and their ability to encapsulate cells and to implant in a minimally invasive manner. The lab is currently focused on developing synthetic-biological hydrogels with highly controlled physical properties and biological function. The discovery of human embryonic stem cells has created the possibility to regenerate any tissue from a single, totipotent cell population. Series: "Stem Cell Channel" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Education] [Show ID: 37017]

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, more than 2.9 million Americans age 40 and older have low vision, which is defined as best-corrected visual acuity worse than 20/40.  Moderator Lillie Shockney is joined by two guests discussing gaining independence in the presence of vision loss. First guest is optometrist, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Rehabilitation Medicine, and the director of the Lions Vision Research and Rehabilitation Center at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Judith Goldstein. Our second guest is Ms. Beth Glassman, a patient of Dr. Goldstein sharing how the Low Vision services helped improve her life.

The importance of changing default behavior to achieve our goals under the tutelage of a coach is discussed on today's episode of the Faculty Factory Podcast with Rachel J. Bishop, MD, MPH. Dr. Bishop sheds light on how faculty can benefit and grow under the guidance of an unbiased coach. She also shares valuable insight on what she has learned coaching folks and training as a coach. With Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Dr. Bishop serves as Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology in the Wilmer Eye Institute. Learn more about today's episode: https://facultyfactory.org/coaching 

Sanford D. Greenberg is Chairman of the Board of Governors of The Johns Hopkins University's Wilmer Eye Institute, the largest clinical and research enterprise in ophthalmology in the United States. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a Trustee Emeritus of The Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine, which incorporates the School of Medicine and the Hospital. Dr. Greenberg lost his eyesight to disease during his junior year in college, yet graduated with his class the following year, elected as class president. In 2012 he instituted a campaign and prize for research toward eradicating blindness among humankind: "End Blindness by 2020." This effort gained international recognition in 2014 when it was granted a featured session on the agenda of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Dr. Greenberg has been a regular participant. President Clinton appointed him to the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation and advises both the President and Congress on policy matters related to science and engineering. He served as Chairman of the Rural Health Care Corporation, created by Congress to bring the benefits of telemedicine to America's rural areas. Dr. Greenberg was a founding director of the American Agenda, an organization established by Presidents Carter and Ford to identify for President George H. W. Bush the six most urgent problems confronting the nation and to recommend bipartisan solutions. He also served as a director of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. As a White House Fellow in the Johnson Administration, Dr. Greenberg worked on national technology needs with the United States Departments of Defense, State, and Commerce, and White House task forces on NASA, information systems, and biomedical research. He was co-editor of the book The Presidential Advisory System, which discussed the methods used by American Presidents to obtain policy advice for the management of the federal government. His career as inventor, entrepreneur, and investor began when he invented and patented a compressed speech machine which speeds up the reproduction of words from recordings without distorting any sound. He founded several enterprises, including a company that produced specialized computer simulators and one which created the world's largest electronic laboratory surveillance network and antimicrobial profiling database. Dr. Greenberg received his B.A. as Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University in 1962. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, and his M.B.A. from Columbia University. He was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University and attended Harvard Law School. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Sue; they have three children and four grandchildren.

This event featured Dr. Bonnielin Swenor, Ph.D., M.P.H., Director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, and an associate professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute. She is also an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as a core faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health. Dr. Swenor discussed advancements in the field of vision research, the stigma and burden associated with vision loss, and the connection between vision health and cognitive health. Dr. Swenor also advocated for those with vision loss, stating the importance of society becoming more universally designed for those with vision loss.

This event featured Dr. Bonnielin Swenor, Ph.D., M.P.H., Director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, and an associate professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute. She is also an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as a core faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health. Dr. Swenor discussed advancements in the field of vision research, the stigma and burden associated with vision loss, and the connection between vision health and cognitive health. Dr. Swenor also advocated for those with vision loss, stating the importance of society becoming more universally designed for those with vision loss.

Meghan Berkenstock, MD, joins us on the Faculty Factory today for a discussion about the habits and hacks that have led to her increased writing productivity over the past year and much more. Dr. Berkenstock serves as Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute with Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. She sees patients four days a week, performs cataract surgeries regularly, and devotes 20 percent of her time to research.

Divya Srikumaran, MD, joins us on the Faculty Factory this week to discuss the habits and hacks that have led to her success while navigating a multigenerational household with her family. This is the second installment of our new season of the podcast called, "H3: Habits and Hacks from Hopkins." On these new H3 episodes, we talk with faculty about the practices, efficient routines and ideas we could all benefit from hearing about in academia, and beyond. At Johns Hopkins Medicine, Dr. Srikumaran serves as: Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology Vice Chair for Education, Wilmer Eye Institute Director, Wilmer Eye Institute at Odenton Dr. Srikumaran is a graduate of the Emerging Women's Leadership Program at Johns Hopkins. She describes living with both her parents and in-laws while caring for her own children. Dr. Srikumaran also explains how some of the things she learned in the Leadership Program have been applicable to her home life.

The Ansari Podcast: Mahmoud Elansary and Dr. Yassine Daoud, 2 Muslim Americans, Dr. Yassine opens up about being a Palestinian refugee and his life and experience as a refugee vs. living in America. They discuss Prophet Muhammed and what it means to be rich. They discuss what the purpose in life is and being unfortunate and oppressed. Life as a refugee vs. Life in the United States. Lebanons oppression towards Palestinian refugees. They discuss Halal and Haram and how it's been given too much precedent over the main principles of Islam. What our purpose as Muslims here on earth are and in America. Who is the most beloved to God (Allah)? And how we should love and care for each other, mercy, compassion, and kindness. They discuss Muslims in America and how being Muslim and being American aren't mutually exclusive. Why young Muslims don't go too mosques anymore. Prophet Muhammed's Mosque and its culture. The issues with the modern mosque and what true Islam actually calls on you to do. The difference between the knowledge of Islam and its implementation. Hijabis and not judging them and what is a Muslims job. ABout Dr. Yassine Daoud: Dr. Daoud received his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School. He was selected to the prestigious Doris Duke Fellowship where he obtained a clinical research fellowship under the mentorship of the world renowned Dr. C. Stephen Foster at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Dr. Daoud is a highly published author and editor in multiple leading ophthalmology journals. He routinely lectures nationally and internationally. Dr Daoud is the chair of the Wilmer Eye Institute's Femtosecond Laser Assisted Cataract Surgery Committee. He currently leads a group of researchers to improve ocular health and incorporate evolving technologies to improve ocular surgery outcomes.

Retina specialist Dr. Adrienne Scott of the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine joins Dr. Timothy Murray to discuss sickle cell retinopathy, a condition present in some patients with sickle cell disease which can lead to vision loss. Tune in to learn more about the condition and how early diagnosis and treatment can help preserve vision. Resources:Access a downloadable fact sheet on sickle cell retinopathy at asrs.org/SickleCellRetinopathy.

Retina specialist Dr. John Thompson of the Wilmer Eye Institute and ASRS EVP Jill Blim join Dr. Murray to discuss Medicare Open Enrollment and what retina patients need to know in order to select a plan that's right for them.  Resources:Learn more about Medicare Open Enrollment at asrs.org/MedicareOpenEnrollment and Medicare.gov. 

Episode Notes Sanford D. Greenberg- September 25th, 8PM Eastern (ACB Radio Mainstream East) and Pacific (ACB Radio Mainstream West) and repeats throughout the next seven days (go to https://speakingoutfortheblind.weebly.com/ for more details) Sandy Greenberg is not your average blind individual. Sandy is the Board of Governors’ Chairman at John Hopkins University’s Wilmer Eye Institute. He is also a United States Foreign Relations Council Member and an American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow. Sandy joins us to talk about his life and his new book called: Hello Darkness, My Old Friend: How Daring Dreams and Unyielding Friendship Turned One Man’s Blindness into an Extraordinary Vision for Life. To listen to this week’s “Speaking Out for the Blind,” go to: http://acbradio.org/mainstream, and choose one of the links under the headings “Listen to ACB Radio Mainstream” and “Now Playing;” or call 1-518-906-1820, and when prompted, press “1” for ACB Radio Mainstream East or press “2” for ACB Radio Mainstream West. You may also listen to the program live on the ACB Link mobile app. For more information, go to http://link.acb.org. Show archive page is at http://acbradio.org/speaking-out-for-the-blind. Please note that there is a link located at the top half of the page and below the heading that says: “Home » Speaking Out for the Blind” where you can subscribe to the podcast feed and listen to Speaking Out for the Blind shows ranging from episode ninety-four to the present. You may also access the feed at https://speaking-out-for-the-blind.pinecast.co. Facebook page is at Speaking Out for the Blind and Twitter page is at SpeakOutfortheBlind (you may also access this at SpeakOutBlind). My new show email address is: speakout@acbradio.org. For more info related to this week’s show, go to: https://speakingoutfortheblind.weebly.com/list-of-episodes-and-show-news/for-more-information-episode-229-sanford-d-greenberg

The internal regulations governing academic institutions were tested during the COVID-19 surges of spring and summer. As we move into autumn, how effective have they been–and are any worth revisiting? New Retina Radio host John Kitchens, MD, reviews this topic with Dilraj Grewal, MD, from the Duke Eye Center; Adrienne Scott, MD, from the Wilmer Eye Institute; and Elliott Sohn, MD, from University of Iowa to gain a better understanding of how institutional safeguards kept patients and staff safe, and how they may have served as (sometimes necessary) roadblocks to getting practice back to pre-pandemic levels.

The internal regulations governing academic institutions were tested during the COVID-19 surges of spring and summer. As we move into autumn, how effective have they been—and are any worth revisiting? New Retina Radio host John Kitchens, MD, reviews this topic with Dilraj Grewal, MD, from the Duke Eye Center; Adrienne Scott, MD, from the Wilmer Eye Institute; and Elliott Sohn, MD, from University of Iowa to gain a better understanding of how institutional safeguards kept patients and staff safe, and how they may have served as (sometimes necessary) roadblocks to getting practice back to pre-pandemic levels. 

The Gary Null Show is here to inform you on the best news in health, healing, the environment. Pea protein-derived tripeptide shows bone-building potential University of Alberta, August 21, 2020   According to news originating from Edmonton, Canada, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Osteoporosis is a bone disease affecting more than 2 million people comprising 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men in Canada. One possible approach to prevent this disease is to stimulate the activity of osteoblasts (bone-forming cells) using food protein-derived bioactive peptides.” Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Alberta, “In our previous study, an ACE inhibitory tripeptide LRW (Leu-Arg-Trp) was identified from pea protein. This work aims to investigate the effect of tripeptide LRW on promoting osteoblastic activity. The tripeptide LRW treatment (50 mM) in MC3T3-E1 cells increased cell proliferation (4-fold increase) as indicated by BrdU incorporation assay. Moreover, we found that tripeptide LRW stimulated osteoblastic differentiation by increasing the levels of type 1 collagen (COL1A2; 3-fold increase), alkaline phosphatase (ALP; 4-fold increase), and runt-related transcription factor 2 (Runx2; 2-fold increase) and the activation of the protein kinase B (Akt) signaling pathway. Furthermore, tripeptide LRW increased matrix mineralization as evidenced by Alizarin-S red staining and nodule formation, osteoprotegerin levels (OPG; 2-fold increase), and wound healing based on cell migration assay.” According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Overall, pea protein-derived bioactive peptide LRW can positively modulate the activity of osteoblasts probably via the Akt/Runx2 pathway, indicating its potential use for the prevention of osteoporosis.”   Yoga linked with improved symptoms in heart patients SMS Hospital (India), August 24, 2020   Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disorder. One in four middle-aged adults in Europe and the US will develop the condition, which causes 20-30% of all strokes and increases the risk of death by 1.5-fold in men and 2-fold in women. Reduced quality of life is common, and 10-40% of patients are hospitalised each year.2  Symptoms of atrial fibrillation include palpitations, racing or irregular pulse, shortness of breath, tiredness, chest pain and dizziness. "The symptoms of atrial fibrillation can be distressing. They come and go, causing many patients to feel anxious and limiting their ability to live a normal life," said study author Dr. Naresh Sen of HG SMS Hospital, Jaipur, India. This study investigated whether yoga could ease symptoms in patients with atrial fibrillation. The study enrolled 538 patients in 2012 to 2017. Patients served as their own controls. For 12 weeks they did no yoga, then for 16 weeks patients attended 30-minute yoga sessions every other day which included postures and breathing. During the yoga period, patients were also encouraged to practice the movements and breathing at home on a daily basis. During both study periods, symptoms and episodes of atrial fibrillation were recorded in a diary. Some patients also wore a heart monitor to verify atrial fibrillation episodes. Patients completed an anxiety and depression survey3 and a questionnaire4 assessing their ability to do daily activities and socialise, energy levels and mood. Heart rate and blood pressure were also measured. The researchers then compared outcomes between the yoga and non-yoga periods. During the 16-week yoga period, patients experienced significant improvements in all areas compared to the 12-week non-yoga period. For example, during the non-yoga period, patients experienced an average of 15 symptomatic episodes of atrial fibrillation compared to eight episodes during the yoga period. Average blood pressure was 11/6 mmHg lower after yoga training. Dr. Sen said: "Our study suggests that yoga has wide-ranging physical and mental health benefits for patients with atrial fibrillation and could be added on top of usual therapies."     Supplementing with fish oil can boost the benefits of resistance training for patients with sarcopenia New Mexico State University, August 21, 2020   A study published in the journal Sports found that taking fish oil supplements can enhance the effects of resistance training among people with sarcopenia, or age-related muscle loss. Researchers found that resistance training can help with muscle loss. But when coupled with fish oil supplementation, blood pressure also dropped, boosting the benefits of the exercise. These findings could help medical professionals develop intervention programs for adults with sarcopenia, as well as those with hypertension and other cardiovascular conditions. “Overall, our findings would provide meaningful implications for future clinical research to develop effective intervention programs for enhancing functional independence as well as cardiovascular health in older populations,” the researchers wrote. Fish oil supplements lower blood pressure levels Muscle loss leads to reduced strength. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2011–2012 estimated that about five percent of adults aged 60 and over had weak muscle strength. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention links muscle weakness to impaired mobility and mortality in older adults. Thus, it is important to prevent or slow down muscle loss. In the study, the researchers examined the effects of daily fish oil supplementation during 12 weeks of programmed resistance training on physical function and blood pressure. They sampled 28 healthy older adults with aged 66 years and above. Eighteen of the participants were female, while the rest were male. They were randomly assigned to either a group that had resistance training and fish oilsupplementation, a group that had resistance training and placebo capsules, or a group that had placebo capsules but no training. The team conducted tests at baseline and 12 weeks later, which measured hand-grip strength, physical function, timed up and go, six-minute walk and blood pressure. Results show that the two experimental groups displayed improvements in physical function while the control group performed poorer in time up and go and decreased their hand-grip strength. Meanwhile, only the group that had both resistance training and fish oil supplementation lowered their blood pressure levels, suggesting that the fish oil capsules have positive effects on blood pressure. Given these findings, the researchers concluded that resistance training and fish oil could be used as a therapeutic intervention for boosting muscular and vascular health, respectively. Harry Rice, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs for the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s, said that the benefits of exercise on health have been known for years. But he added, “What's really exciting about the results from the current research is that they suggest the addition of fish oil can boost those benefits.” Rice was not part of the study.     A healthy lifestyle for cardiovascular health also promotes good eye health Texas Tech University Health Sciences, August 20, 2020    In a new study, investigators found that ideal cardiovascular health, which is indicative of a healthy lifestyle, was associated with lower odds for ocular diseases especially diabetic retinopathy. These findings appearing in the American Journal of Medicine, published by Elsevier, suggest that interventions to prevent cardiovascular diseases may also hold promise in preventing ocular diseases.  Globally, about 2.2 billion people suffer from ocular diseases leading to vision impairment or blindness. Approximately half of these cases could have been prevented. The leading causes of vision impairment or blindness are age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, cataract, and glaucoma.  "Earlier studies have observed associations between eye diseases and individual lifestyle factors such as smoking, obesity, or hypertension," explained lead investigator Duke Appiah, PhD, MPH, Department of Public Health, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX, USA. "It is known that these metrics of ideal cardiovascular health do not work alone and may interact additively to result in diseases. However, prior to our research, no other studies have comprehensively evaluated the association of all of the metrics of ideal cardiovascular health with ocular diseases." Most ocular diseases show few symptoms at early stages and many people may not seek medical care despite readily available treatments. A recent online nationwide survey consisting of all racial and ethnic groups in the United States conducted by the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine showed that 88 percent of the 2,044 respondents considered good vision to be vital to overall health with 47 percent of them rating losing their vision as the worst disease that could ever happen to them. Alarmingly, 25 percent did not have any knowledge about ocular diseases and their risk factors. This research shows that following healthy lifestyle and behavior habits can all contribute to good cardiovascular health as assessed by adherence to the American Heart Association's prescription for health metric known as Life's Simple Seven (LS7). LS7 is based on the status of seven cardiovascular disease risk factors: not smoking, regular physical activity, healthy diet, maintaining normal weight, and controlling cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels.  Practicing these healthy lifestyles together was found to be associated with lower odds for age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, cataract, and glaucoma. Individuals with optimal cardiovascular health had 97 percent lower odds for diabetic retinopathy compared to individuals with inadequate cardiovascular health.  Investigators evaluated data from 6,118 adults aged 40 or more years old who took part in the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The average age of participants was 57 years old, 53 percent of whom were women. A one unit increase in LS7 scores was associated with reduced odds for age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma.  "Overall, we believe that primary prevention and early detection approaches of ocular diseases are important, considering that over half of all deaths from ocular diseases and cardiovascular diseases are known to be preventable," commented co-investigators Noah De La Cruz, MPH, and Obadeh Shabaneh, MPH, both from the Department of Public Health, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX, USA. Since there is a significant overlap of the risk factors for ocular diseases and cardiovascular disease, the investigators recommended that screening for ocular diseases be incorporated into existing clinical and population-based screenings for cardiovascular diseases. "We hope that our study findings will encourage adherence to healthy lifestyles in order to prevent these age-related diseases while also leading to increased collaborations between cardiologists, optometrists, and ophthalmologists in order to better prevent cardiovascular and ocular diseases," noted Dr. Appiah.       Influence of vitamin D supplementation on a baby's gut microbiome Vitamin D supplementation is associated with compositional changes in a baby's microbiome at three months of age University of Alberta, August 20, 2020   New research from the CHILD Cohort Study has shed light on the influence of vitamin D supplementation on a baby's developing gut microbiome.  The study, published in the journal Gut Microbes, found that vitamin D supplementation is associated with compositional changes in a baby's microbiome--notably a lower abundance of the bacteria Megamonas--at three months of age. "Vitamin D plays an important role in early life, supporting bone metabolism and the healthy development of a baby's immune system," said senior author Anita Kozyrskyj, a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta and a CHILD Cohort Study investigator. "Most infants in North America receive vitamin D, either as a supplement to breastfeeding or as an ingredient in commercial infant formulas, so we wanted to understand the association between vitamin D and the presence or abundance of key bacteria within a baby's intestinal tract." The researchers examined fecal samples taken during home visits from 1,157 infants who are part of the CHILD Cohort Study--a national study that is following nearly 3,500 Canadian children from before birth to adolescence with the primary goal of discovering the root causes of allergies, asthma, obesity and other chronic diseases. They found that direct vitamin D supplementation of infants with vitamin D drops was associated with a lower abundance of Megamonas, regardless of how a baby was fed (breastfed or formula fed). "While little is known about Megamonas in infancy, our previous research suggests there may be a link between this bacterium and asthma or respiratory viral infections, so vitamin D may offer additional benefits for childhood health that should be studied further," added Kozyrskyj, also a member of the Women and Children's Health Research Institute.  The researchers also assessed the association between infant and maternal vitamin D supplementation and the presence of Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) in a baby's gut. "Some infants carry the diarrhea-causing bacterium C. difficile in their guts without any symptoms. However, when the levels of gut bacteria become imbalanced, this particular bacterium can multiply, causing illness and increasing the susceptibility to chronic disease later in childhood," commented first author Kelsea Drall, an MSc graduate from the U of A and an AllerGen trainee. The study found that nearly 30 per cent of the infants carried C. difficile, but there was a lower incidence of the bacterium among exclusively breastfed infants. However, neither infant supplementation with vitamin D drops nor maternal vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy or after delivery was associated with C. difficile colonization. "Interestingly, maternal consumption of vitamin D-fortified milk was the only factor that reduced the likelihood of C. difficile colonization in infants," added Drall.  According to Kozyrskyj, an infant's gut microbiota undergoes rapid change in early life. Therefore, it is critical to understand the factors associated with microbial communities populating the infant gut during this key developmental period. "Low vitamin D levels have been associated with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)--a common lung infection among infants--and more recently, susceptibility to COVID-19 disease," she pointed out. "In the CHILD Cohort Study, we have a unique opportunity to follow our study children as they get older to understand how microbial changes observed as a result of dietary interventions may be associated with later health outcomes such as asthma and viral infections."     Ashwagandha linked to better quality sleep and less anxiety Prakruti Hospital (India), August 19, 2020 Ashwagandha, a prominent herb in traditional Indian medicine Ayurveda, continues to gain support from the medical community as studies find how beneficial the herb is for overall wellbeing and health. Previous studies have found the herb helps reduce cortisol levels and boosts testosterone levels in humans, and now researchers have found evidence the herb is linked to better quality sleep and reduced anxiety. One new trial, published in the journal Cureus, discovered that among aging women and men, taking Ashwagandha improved sleep, mental alertness and overall quality of life. For centuries, the herb has been used to promote longevity, health, and rejuvenation, and this new research backs up its traditional use. Older adults enjoyed improved sleep, mental alertness, and overall quality of life The trial involved aging adults between age 65 and 80, and half were give ashwagandha root extract twice a day and the rest were given a placebo. The trial lasted for 12 weeks, and sleep quality, mental alertness, daytime sleepiness, and quality of life were all evaluated before the trial, at four weeks, at eight weeks, and at the end of the 12-week period. Aging adults that were taking the ashwagandha root extra saw significant improvements in physical, social, quality of life, psychological, and environmental aspects of their lives compared to the placebo group. Mental alertness and sleep quality improved in those taking the supplement, too. Those taking ashwagandha tolerated it well, and it was considered beneficial and safe. According to researchers, the study showed improved sleep and a significant improvement in quality of life for elderly individuals taking the extract. They believe taking ashwagandha root extract could be an excellent supplement for aging adults to boost general well-being and improve age-related health problems     Study concludes that treatment of children with asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis should include vitamin D3 Bogomolets National Medical University (Ukraine), August 21, 2020   According to news reporting out of Kyiv, Ukraine, research stated, “The aim:Tostudythedynamicsof thelevelof 25(ON)D, IL-4, IL-10, and IgG in the bloodserum of children with allergicdiseasesandtostudytheclinicaleffectof vitamin D3 administration n different dosage in this category of patients. Materials andmethods: 153 children aged 3-16 with such allergicdiseasesasbronchialasthma, atopicdermatitisandallergicrhinitis havebeen examined.” Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Bogomolets National Medical University, “The level of 25(ON) D was determined using the electrochemiluminescence method, while the levels of IL-4, IL-10 and IgG were assessed using enzyme-linked immunoassay. In the contrasting of the initial level of 25(ON)D in the blood serum of patients after administration of 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 over 2 months, after summer and after treatment with cholecalciferol in higherdoses (4,000-5,000 IU) over 2 months, significant difference wasestablishedbetween the indicators by the Friedman criterion (l2=41.211; p

Sanford D. Greenberg is Chairman of the Board of Governors of The Johns Hopkins University's Wilmer Eye Institute, the largest clinical and research enterprise in ophthalmology in the United States.He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a Trustee Emeritus of The Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine, which incorporates the School of Medicine and the Hospital.

We welcome Dr Frank M Sorrentino economy and political expert, and the author of Presidential Power and The American Political System.Sandford Greenberg, Hello Darkness my Old Friend: How daring Dreams and Unyielding Friendship turned Turned Ones Man's Blindness into an Extraordinary Vision for Life. Sandy is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of The Johns Hopkins University's Wilmer Eye Institute. Listen to find out his friendship to Art Garfunkel.

We welcome Dr Frank M Sorrentino economy and political expert, and the author of Presidential Power and The American Political System.Sandford Greenberg, Hello Darkness my Old Friend: How daring Dreams and Unyielding Friendship turned Turned Ones Man's Blindness into an Extraordinary Vision for Life. Sandy is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of The Johns Hopkins University's Wilmer Eye Institute. Listen to find out his friendship to Art Garfunkel.

In this episode, I chat with Dr. David Wu MD PhD, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University's Wilmer Eye Institute. Dr. Wu is a vitreoretinal surgeon and scientist who balances making breakthroughs in gene therapy related to retinal disease, and training fellows in dealing with complex retinal surgery. We talk about his journey in the field from an early interest in research, his approach to teaching and mentorship, how he overcame any doubts about himself in his career, and how his kids are keeping him busy these days. Like, comment, subscribe on Youtube, Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. If you enjoy this content spread the word and share it with someone who might benefit from these perspectives. You can find me on Twitter @bilal_1712 and on Instagram @honestlybilal.

On Saturday, June 20th, Dr. Poullos hosted the Stanford Med School of Medicine's first annual Conference on Disability in Healthcare and Medicine. The event was an enormous success and attended by over a thousand people in over five countries. Dr. Poullos and Meeks debriefed after the conference, and shared a common question. What's next? This is a big question to be sure, and one filled with possibilities for what inclusion in medicine could be. Dr. Poullos and Meeks invited some colleagues and medical education leaders to the special edition of the podcast to discuss how we can work collectively to build on this momentum.    Guests Include: Chiquita Collins, the chief diversity officer and Vice Dean for Inclusion and Diversity at the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine Iris Gibbs, Associate Dean of Admissions for Stanford Medicine Michael Kim, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs Zoie Sheets, a medical student from the University of Illinois, Chicago Bonnie Sweenor, Associate professor, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

The history of the field of blindness is rich and storied. While APH has long focused on education and resources for people who are blind, The Wilmer Eye Institute from Johns Hopkins has focused on research, diagnosis and treatment of eye conditions. APH President, Craig Meador sits down with leaders from Wilmer to discuss their past, their goals, and how we can all work together to create a future that belongs to everyone.Guests: Jim Deremeik - The Education Rehabilitation Program Manager at the Low Vision Clinic. He’s worked at Johns Hopkins for 26 years.Judy Goldstein - The Director of Low Vision Rehabilitation Services at Wilmer, and an associate professor of ophthalmology. She spent 10+ years at a private low vision practice, and has now been with Johns Hopkins for more than 15 years, working in clinical care research and teaching.

This week, we talk with the program directors at UC Davis, the Wilmer Eye Institute and Yale about all the questions you had about applying for residency, especially in the time of COVID19. Topics ranged from application timing, how to contact your dream program for an interview, how much Step 1 and 2 really matter and much more. If you are applying, please help with a survey being conducted by a team from around the US about how COVID19 is impacting your application cycle; we hope this will give program directors information which will make for a more fair application process: https://yalesurvey.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3vLAobPb3IMSF0N If you have any questions or concerns about the survey, please contact Ninani Kombo, MD, at Ninani.kombo@yale.edu. If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, or you have complaints about this research, you can call the Yale Institutional Review Boards at (203) 785-4688 or email hrpp@yale.edu. Finally, check out Dr. Jay Sridhar's excellent interview of this same panel at his podcast "Straight from the Cutter's Mouth" where he discusses medical education and how to be a program director: http://www.retinapodcast.com/episodes/2020/2/12/episode-213-being-an-ophthalmology-residency-program-director-with-drs-jessica-chow-nandini-gandhi-and-fasika-woreta

For all the Low Vision enthusiast out there, this podcast is meant for you. Dr. Arathy Kartha started her journey in optometry in 1998 at Sankara Nethralaya and then moved to Queensland University of Technology, Australia where she pursed her PhD focusing on Low Vision. With life taking its own twists & turns, she moved to USA and had to restart her career. With constant persistence, patience and aim to work only at the best universities, she is currently pursuing her Post Doctoral Research Fellowship from Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine. In this candid conversation she shares some amazing life lessons about her optometry journey, her role in initiating "Elite School of optometry International Vision Science and optometry Conference" (EIVOC) and her research in Low vision using Virtual Reality.Being a mother of two, she talks about the importance of work life balance and shares some amazing take away messages for all.You can connect with her viaLinkedIn: Arathy Kartha Ph.DConnect with me to get all the updates via any of these platforms:Website: www.nerdyoptometrist.comEmail: nerdyoptometrist@gmail.comLinkedIn: Nerdy OptometristInstagram: nerdyoptometristTwitter: NerdyOptomMusic courtesy: A. R. Rahman & Bhagirath Bhatt.

Dr. Henderson is an Assistant Professor in Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. She attended medical school at Emory University, completed a Residency in Ophthalmology at the Medical College of Georgia, and completed a Fellowship in Neuro-Ophthalmology at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. In addition to her work as a clinician, she is involved in clinical and translational research, with particular interests in optic neuropathies, specifically non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, and in ophthalmic and neuro-imaging. She has presented nationally and internationally and published in these areas. She also has a particular interest in education, serving as the Neuro-Ophthalmology Fellowship Director and the Education Champion for the Division of Neuro-Ophthalmology at Wilmer and on education-related committees in the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society (NANOS), and is the recipient of the Helen Iliff Scholar Fund to support the development of resident education.

Dr. Natalia Vergara is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus. Natalia uses stem cells to understand how the retina forms during development and how it degenerates during disease with the goal of developing therapies to help patients who suffer from vision loss. In her free time, Natalia loves hanging out, cooking, and enjoying food with friends and family, including her husband and two young kids. Natalia is also an avid traveler, and she delights in the thrill of discovery that comes along with exploring new places. Natalia received her B.S. in biochemistry from the National University of the Litoral in Argentina. She worked as an instructor and research intern at the National University of Entre Rios for about three years before beginning graduate school. Natalia was awarded her PhD in retinal regenerative biology from Miami University in Ohio. Afterwards, she conducted postdoctoral research at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She served as a Research Associate Faculty member at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for about two years before joining the faculty at the University of Colorado. Natalia has received awards for research and for mentoring, including the Ruben Adler Research Award from the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2012, and she was selected as an Emerging Vision Scientist to participate in the Third Annual EVS day on Capitol Hill by the National Alliance for Eye and Vision Research in 2017. In our interview, Natalia tells us more about her life and science.

Low vision affects approximately 2.9 million Americans age 40 and older. This month's guest is researcher Bonnielin Swenor, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute and an assistant professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health discusses her personal experience and research that focuses on the impact of  and eye disease such as age-related macular degeneration, on aging. She also shares her personal connection to her research.

Dr. Bonnielin Swenor's research aims to improve the health of persons with disabilities, by transforming traditional thinking on health disparities research. Over the past decade, there has been an increased focus on identifying and addressing health disparities among racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic minority groups; however, persons with disabilities have largely been absent from these efforts. Motivated by her personal experience with a vision impairment and resulting disability, Dr. Swenor is working to address this gap. Her work has focused on three interrelated areas: (1) determining the impact of visual impairments on long-term health and aging outcomes, (2) documenting healthcare disparities and improving healthcare utilization, quality, and access for those with vision loss; and (3) enhancing the inclusion of persons with visual impairments and other disabilities in the biomedical workforce. This research has sparked a reframing of importance of visual impairment on overall health, helped to reclassify visual impairment as a health disparity, and highlighted the need to include people with disabilities in science and medicine –which is critical to driving scientific innovation and improving patient care. Seeing the impact and broad applicability of this work, Dr. Swenor is now expanding her research framework, using an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, to establish the evidence needed to design effective policies and programs that will reduce health disparities for persons with all types of disabilities.

If you've ever thought "THE PRESSURE IS 50, WHAT DO???" take a listen to this week's Buddy Call episode, with our very own Dr. Andrew Pouw, glaucoma fellow at the Wilmer Eye Institute. The pressure is off, as he takes both beginning resident and seasoned veteran on a tour of how to handle glaucoma emergencies.

Gene DeJuan, Jr., MD, Founder & Vice-Chairman, ForSight Labs Renowned retinal surgeon, inventor and entrepreneur Dr. Eugene de Juan, Jr., serves as Vice-Chairman of ForSight Labs, where he participates as an active inventor and advisor in early-stage ophthalmic device opportunities. Dr. de Juan, Jr., splits his time between ForSight Labs and UCSF. He holds the “Jean Kelly Stock Distinguished Chair” in Ophthalmology. UCSF recruited Dr. de Juan for this special role to augment translation of the many ideas being developed within the academic center. He continues to see patients, operate and teach at UCSF. Dr. de Juan, Jr., has participated in the development of a number of ophthalmology's most exciting new technologies with over 100 products and the founding of nine venture funded companies including Second Sight, InnoRx, NeoVista, and Retina Labs, in addition to ForSight Labs' first five “VISION” companies: Transcend Medical, Inc., founded in 2005; VISION2 (acquired by QLT, Inc. in 2007); Nexis Vision, Inc. (formerly ForSight VISION3, Inc.), founded in 2007; ForSight VISION4, Inc., founded in 2009; and ForSight VISION5, Inc., founded in 2010. Prior to moving to San Francisco, Dr. de Juan, Jr., was a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Southern California and CEO of the Doheny Eye Institute, focusing on innovative techniques for treating blinding retinal disorders through retinal transplantation, macular translocation, robotic surgery, retinal implants, and other new procedures, medicines and instruments. Prior to these positions, Dr. de Juan served at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was Co-Director of Vitreoretinal Service, Director of the Microsurgery Advanced Design Laboratory (MADLAB) and Joseph E. Green Professor of Ophthalmology. From 1983 to 1992, he was a member of the medical staff of the Duke University Eye Center, holding joint teaching appointments with the departments of ophthalmology and cell biology. He is a passionate supporter of ophthalmic education and development and has recently helped established a chair for Ophthalmic Education at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. de Juan completed his medical degree and internship training at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. He served an internship at University of South Alabama Medical Center followed by a residency at the Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute in Baltimore, MD, and a fellowship in vitreoretinal surgery at Duke University. He holds patents on over sixty medical devices and is responsible for more than 250 academic publications.

Dr. Janine Austin Clayton is the Associate Director for Research on Women’s Health and Director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health. There are 27 Institutes and Centers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Research on women’s health is being conducted across all of these Institutes, and Janine helps lead and coordinate these efforts. In addition, she champions and celebrates the exceptional work that NIH-supported researchers around the world are doing. Janine’s own research focuses on issues in women’s health and diseases of the eye. Janine has a wide variety of interests outside of science, including visiting art museums near her home in Washington DC and around the world. She also likes spending her free time hanging out with her family, listening to jazz music, playing the piano, reading the Sunday paper, and staying active through yoga, Tai Chi, and Zumba. She was awarded her undergraduate degree with honors from Johns Hopkins University and her medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine. Afterwards, Janine completed a residency in ophthalmology at the Medical College of Virginia and fellowships at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital as well as the National Eye Institute (NEI). Janine is a board-certified ophthalmologist. She served as a Clinical Investigator at NEI for a number of years, and prior to her current appointments, she was the Deputy Clinical Director of NEI. Janine has received numerous awards and honors for her exceptional work, including the Senior Achievement Award from the Board of Trustees of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, selection as a Silver Fellow by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the European Uveitis Patient Interest Association Clinical Uveitis Research Award, the American Medical Women’s Association Lila A. Wallis Women’s Health Award, the Wenger Award for Excellence in Public Service, and the Bernadine Healy Award for Visionary Leadership in Women’s Health. In addition, Janine was selected as an honoree for the Woman’s Day Red Dress Awards and the American Medical Association’s Dr. Nathan Davis Awards for Outstanding Government Service. In our interview, Janine speaks more about her experiences in life and science.

Regenerative Medicine Today welcomes Dr. Jennifer Elisseeff.  Dr. Elisseeff is a Professor at the Wilmer Eye Institute and Department of Biomedical Engineering, as well as the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering and Orthopedic Surgery at John Hopkins University.   Dr. Elisseeff discusses her work with the Journal of Immunology and Regenerative Medicine as [...]

Dr. Ashvini Reddy of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Michelle Liang of Tufts University join the podcast for a group discussion of Dr. Reddy's recent publication (link: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/article-abstract/2597593) in JAMA Ophthalmology regarding the role ophthalmologist gender plays in clinical activity and Medicare reimbursement.

1551 Careers in STEM (Dec. 16, 2015) Show Notes Bonnielin Swenor is an Assistant Professor in the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She talks with hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey about how her limited vision has affected her career path. She also talks about her research into how the visually impaired … Continue reading 1551 Careers in STEM (Dec. 16, 2015) →

This telephone discussion features Christopher Brady, MD, an ophthalmologist from the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who specializes in the medical and surgical management of retinal diseases, including macular degeneration. His research focuses on the benefits of telemedicine for underserved populations and how new technologies can improve patient care.

This telephone discussion features Christopher Brady, MD, an ophthalmologist from the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who specializes in the medical and surgical management of retinal diseases, including macular degeneration. His research focuses on the benefits of telemedicine for underserved populations and how new technologies can improve patient care.

This telephone discussion features Christopher Brady, MD, an ophthalmologist from the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who specializes in the medical and surgical management of retinal diseases, including macular degeneration. His research focuses on the benefits of telemedicine for underserved populations and how new technologies can improve patient care.

An interview between Thomas Oetting, MD, and James P. Dunn, MD. Dr. JP Dunn, Residency Program Director at the Wilmer Eye Institute, shares his experience

Dr. Neil Bressler, James P. Gills Professor of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Chief of the Retina Division at the Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore, Maryland will deteremine the benefits and risks of intravitreal corticosteriods in eyes with macular edema from central and branch retinal vein occlusion

Dr. Neil Bressler, James P. Gills Professor of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Chief of the Retina Division at the Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore, Maryland will review the entire course and the goal of the program as well as review the CME information and learning objectives.

Dr. Bressler presents an overview of the program, including how the program originated.