When Barrett Haik, MD, left his native New Orleans in 1977 to complete ophthalmology training in New York City, D. Jackson Coleman, MD, took him under his wing.

 

In the mid-2000s, when Haik was tapped to establish the Hamilton Eye Institute (HEI) at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), the only university eye center providing advanced vision care within a 200-mile radius of Memphis, his first call was to Coleman, who had established the Margaret M. Dyson Vision Research Institute, one of the world's major retinal research programs. In only five years, HEI has become world-renowned for innovative ophthalmology services.

 

Earlier this year, Haik was pleased to pay-it-forward by introducing Coleman to the Memphis community and honoring him as the Sir Harold Ridley Distinguished Visiting Professor for his creation of the diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound for the eye. Coleman, who traces his roots to Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson of American Civil War fame, serves as the John Milton McLean Professor of Ophthalmology and chairman emeritus of the Department of Ophthalmology in New York, where he is a retina specialist focused on ocular oncology and all aspects of retinal disease.

 

"Dr. Coleman raised me from a resident to junior faculty to associate professor at Cornell, and taught me a tremendous amount about surgery, ultrasound and imaging of the eye," said Haik, director of UT HEI, chair of the UT Health Science Center Department of Ophthalmology, and chief of the ophthalmology division of surgery at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. "I was there when he pioneered a lot of his efforts to develop ultrasonography as a tool for eye disease, and the ultrasound he developed for the eye that became widespread throughout medicine. A lot of what followed in obstetrics, prostate, abdominal and thyroid ultrasound came from Dr. Coleman's early work on the eye."

 

Haik, who recently returned from the 2010 World Ophthalmology Congress in Berlin, Germany, explained the eye was such an ideal medium for ultrasound because it is fluid and filled, allowing sound waves to travel well.

 

"For the first time, you could see through opaque media if you had a hemorrhaging eye, cataracts, or a corneal disease," he said. "In the past, you could never really know what was going on inside. He learned to use a contact method of ultrasound to visualize what was happening in areas where light couldn't penetrate. He got a lot of ideas for the ultrasound from the Navy's Sonar techniques used for the oceans, and worked with engineers in their labs to adapt it to the eye."

 

Together with Frederic L. Lizzi, EngScD, Coleman created the first commercially available B-Scan ultrasound equipment for the eye. Coleman's pioneering surgical techniques include performing the first vitreoretinal surgery in New York. He is an officer of every major ultrasound medical society in the world, including the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, Societas Internationalis de Diagnostic Ultrasonica in Ophthalmologia, and World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology Inc., and past president of the American Retina Society and Club Jules Gonin, the International Retina Society. 

 

"Dr. Coleman didn't get the recognition he deserved for a long time in his career because a lot of people were skeptics about the ability of his work," said Haik. "Time has proven that it's become a worldwide standard. One of the purposes of the Ridley Medal was to not only look at those who were innovative, but also those who had persevered criticism, ridicule and rejection … their early concepts weren't accepted well by others. There's no doubt he wasn't appreciated early in his career, and I watched his personal courage moving forward. Now his work is well acclaimed." 

 

Jerre Freeman, MD, clinical professor of ophthalmology at the UTHSC, and founder of Memphis Eye Cataract & Laser Center (MECA), created the Sir Harold Ridley Distinguished Visiting Professorship for Creativity and Innovation in Ophthalmology in 2001.  

 

"Dr. Freeman is a great innovator on his own, and so many people he's awarded with the Ridley Medal have been people who have really changed the face of American medicine, not only in ophthalmology but in ways that have spilled over into other specialties," said Haik. "It's been a wonderful way to recognize people, and to encourage younger and mid-career doctors to believe in yourself, that if you truly have a great idea, don't let people discourage you. It takes a lot of strength to persevere."