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Daniel M. Albert

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Legacypac (talk | contribs) at 19:57, 23 March 2018 (Requesting speedy deletion (CSD G11). (TW)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

  • Comment: A puzzling article. It is long, but woefully under-sourced. Whole, lengthy, sections are without any references at all. Although subtle, a prevalent, relentlessly positive, tone pervades the article; "He possesses extensive medical school teaching experience", "Perhaps, Dr. Albert’s most important contribution to the field of Ophthalmology is in the area of ocular tumors", "His research into Ocular Cancer is highly regarded", "In addition to his impressive body of published work", "His introductions are concise, eloquent and informative". All entirely uncited and just some examples amongst many. I think it very likely that this is either an autobiography - something Wikipedia strongly discourages - or written by somebody with a connection, commercial or personal, to the article subject. This would seem to be supported by the provenance of the article's photo. If I am right, this needs to be declared as a Conflict of Interest. If I am wrong, the single-purpose editor can declare that here. The article subject may very well be Notable, but this draft, with its weak sourcing and decidedly non-neutral tone, does not demonstrate that. KJP1 (talk) 18:21, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Dr. Daniel M Albert

Dr. Daniel M. Albert, MD. MS.

Dr. Daniel M. Albert (1936- ) is an ophthalmologist, ocular cancer researcher, medical historian, rare book collector and philanthropist. He is currently Professor of Ophthalmology, Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, in Portland Oregon. He is married and has two sons.He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Early Life and Education

Daniel Albert was born in Newark, New Jersey on December 19, 1936. He attended Weequahic High School. As a high school student he became interested in pursuing a career in medicine. Albert was a biology major at Franklin and Marshall University in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree which he was awarded in 1958. After receiving his undergraduate degree, Dr. Albert entered the University of Pennsylvania where he studied medicine. He earned his medical degree in 1962. After graduation, Dr. Albert worked as an intern at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania .

Between 1963 and 1966, Dr. Albert completed a three year residency in Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania. During his residency, Dr. Albert worked with world renowned ophthalmologist Dr. Harold Scheie, Dr. Harold Scheie. During the last year of his residency, he was appointed an Instructor in the UPenn Medical School. In a recent interview, Dr. Albert recalled Dr. Scheie fondly. He stated that:

“Dr. Scheie, the chair of ophthalmology when I was a student and resident, taught us quite a few patient care principles: To give a patient your full attention from the moment you walk into the examining room so they have no doubt of your concern for them. Examine carefully. Pay attention to detail. Avoid “curbside consults.” Never take anyone’s complaints lightly. After surgery, one should put a dressing on with the same degree of care as when performing surgery. The patient’s family will judge the quality of the surgery, in part, on the appearance of the dressing.”.[1]

Having completed his residency in 1966, Dr. Albert received a two year fellowship at the ophthalmology division of the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Blindness (which later became the National Eye Institute). In 1968 Dr. Albert received a second fellowship: NIH Special Fellow in Ophthalmic Pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

Medical Career

After concluding his medical training and fellowships in 1970, Dr. Albert was offered his first hospital appointment in New Haven, CT. He served as the Chief of the Eye Pathology Laboratory, Yale-New Haven Hospital, among other professional duties. From 1976 to 1984, Dr. Albert served as Associate Surgeon, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He later became the David G. Cogan Professor in Ophthalmology at Harvard, holding this endowed chair from 1983 to 1992. Dr. Albert, at this time, also served as the Director of the David G. Cogan Eye Pathology Laboratory, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

In 1992, Dr. Albert was appointed Chair in Ophthalmology at University of Wisconsin. After a twenty-four year career in Madison, Wisconsin, Albert bid farewell to Wisconsin in 2016 and he and his wife, Eleanor, moved to Portland, Oregon where he serves on the academic staff of the Casey Eye Institute in Portland, Oregon. In addition to his Penn, Harvard, Yale and Wisconsin tenures, between 1970 and 1995, Dr. Albert held a number of Visiting Professional and Major Appointments in hospitals across the United States. In 1985, Dr. Albert spent a semester in London, England where he was a visiting Professor at the University of London and he was a Visiting Scientist at the Institute of Ophthalmology, at Moorfield’s Hospital.

Academic Career

During his fifty year career Dr. Albert has divided his time between the examination room, the laboratory and the classroom. He possesses extensive medical school teaching experience. While holding his academic and medical appointments, since 1965 Dr. Albert has amassed thousands of hours of teaching medical students, residents, and fellows, Ophthalmic Pathology and Ocular Oncology. Teaching occupied about one-third of his time. In addition, Dr. Albert has been a guest lecturer in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan. Dr. Albert and his family moved to Yale University where he taught from 1969 to 1975. At the time of his departure from Yale he was a full professor in the Yale Medical School. From 1976 to 1983, Albert was Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard University. Dr. Albert was appointed the David C. Cogan Professor of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School in 1983.

After seventeen years of professional life at Harvard, Dr. Albert was appointed as the Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Wisconsin. He was also named at this time, the Frederick Allison Davis Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Wisconsin Medical School. In 2012, Dr. Albert accepted the position of Archivist, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Albert was also the founding Director of the University of Wisconsins McPherson Eye Research Institute, a position he held for ten years. In 2016, after a 24 year career as a professor, clinician, and researcher, Albert was honored with the title Chair Emeritus, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Although many individuals might have considered retirement at the age of seventy-nine, Dr. Albert, for professional and personal reasons accepted the position of Professor of Ophthalmology, Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health & Science University.

Research Interests

Perhaps, Dr. Albert’s most important contribution to the field of Ophthalmology is in the area of ocular tumors. His contribution in this area is aptly described as follows:

Dr. Albert’s research focuses on ocular tumors, specifically melanoma and retinoblastoma. His work includes cloning of the retinoblastoma gene (RB1), development of animal models and treatment for [[Macular_degeneration#Age-related|Age Related Macular Degeneration](ARMD), and development of a rabbit model for dry eye. Dr. Albert's work with retinoblastoma utilizes transgenic mouse models of that tumor to investigate the molecular biology of the disease and to learn whether vitamin D analogs produce tumor regression in these animal models. He also studies melanoma in a transgenic mouse model. From 1985-2003, Dr. Albert headed the pathology unit of the National Eye Institute’s Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS) and was the head of the COMS Pathology Center; he remains curator of the specimens collected during the study. His other interests include medical ethics and the history of medicine and ophthalmology.[2]

His research into Ocular Cancer is highly regarded and his ongoing research is recognized by his continued support from the National Institute of Health for his clinical research. Furthermore, he has published hundreds of journal articles and several seminal textbooks on the subject. In sum, he has made a major contribution to the ongoing search for a cure of Retinoblastoma and Melanomaof the eye.

Professional Activities

Beyond the laboratory, the lecture hall, and the clinic Dr. Albert has been an active member of his profession. Among his most important professional affiliations are membership in the Association For Research in Vision and Opthalmology (1962-); the American Medical Association(1963-); and the American Ophthalmological Society(1973-). In 1985, Dr. Albert was appointed to the Executive Committee of the Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study; and in 2005 he served a one year term as the President of the American Ophthalmological Society.

Awards and Honors

Beginning in 1958 while he was a student at[[Franklin and Marshall University], Dr. Albert has been the recipient of many honors and awards; in addition, he has been invited to give numerous guest lectures. Indeed an examination of his curriculum vitae reveals that Dr. Albert has been the recipient of an award every year during the course of his professional career. Among his notable academic honors, Dr. Albert was given an honorary MA from the Harvard Medical School in 1976; eight years later, he was conferred with the degree Doctor Honoris Causa, from the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France.

In 2001, Dr. Albert was recognized by his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine when he was presented with the School's prestigious, Distinguished Graduate Award. Perhaps his most cherished honor was given to Albert in 2008 when he was recognized with the creation of The Daniel M. Albert Professorship in Visual Sciences established by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Another area in which Dr. Albert’s contribution has been widely recognized is in the field of scientific publishing. In 1994 Albert received from the Association of American Publishers for the Best Medical Book Award for Principles and Practice of Ophthalmology. In 2010 he was recognized by his peers with the Life Achievement Honor Award, American Academy of Ophthalmology and the following year he achieved national recognition when he was named Laureate of the Academy, its highest honor.

Publications and Editorial Work

A prolific author, during his five decade long career, Dr. Albert has published over 673 journal articles to date and he is the author or co-author of forty texts and monographs, 114 book chapters, 138 editorials and letters to the editor, and thirty blog posts for the journal Science. Dr. Albert's blog post focus on offering career advice to aspiring students who are considering a career in Medicine.

The vast majority of his published journal articles are concerned with his research in the field of ocular cancer. In 1963 among his first published articles were on melanoma: the first was published in[3] and the second appeared in [4].A bibliometric analysis of Dr. Albert’s journal publications reveals that forty per cent of his articles concern the subjects of melanoma, retinoblastoma cancer and tumors.[5]

In addition to his impressive body of published work, Dr. Albert has also held numerous distinguished editorial positions . Among these are services on the editorial board of Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary (1969- ); from 1985 to 1994, Dr. Albert was the Book Review editor for the journal Archives of Ophthalmology ; in 1991 Albert was appointed Associate Editor of History of Ophthalmology (Documenta Ophthalmologica) and in 1994 he was selected to serve as Editor for the journal. From 1994 to 2013 Dr. Albert was Editor-in-Chief of the Archives of Ophthalmology. During the same nineteen year period, Dr. Albert served on the editorial board of the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA). Since 2014, Dr. Albert has been an active member on the editorial board of the journal Ophthalmology.

Among his many separately published texts and monographs on the subject of Ophthalmology, the one text that will certainly endure as a standard textbook is his Principles and Practices of Ophthalmology first published in 2000 and still in print in its third edition. With a nod to Sir William Osler’s revolutionary classic, The Practice and Principles of Medicine (1896), Albert’s textbook is essential reading for physicians training in the field of Ophthalmology. This view is eloquently expressed in Dr. Bradley Straatsma’s 1994 review of the first edition of the Principles and Practises. Straatsma praised the authors stating that:

"This six-volume worked provides a firm foundation for the acquisition of knowledge by the ophthalmologist-in-training and gives the ophthalmologist in practice an excellent platform for the acquisition of knowledge that is essential to present and future ophthalmic practice. This series is certain to be extremely useful to ophthalmologists at all levels of their professional careers, a highly useful addition to the collections of practice groups and institution, and an essential element in ophthalmic libraries."[6]

The 3rd edition was published by Elsevier Books in 2012, and a 4th edition is in preparation.

Writings on the History of Ophthalmology

In addition to Albert’s writings on his speciality, he has also contributed to the history of his speciality and written on ocular history. During the late 1980s and early nineties, Albert contributed introductory essays to forty-eight classics in the field of medicine for Gryphon Editions. His introductions are concise, eloquent and informative. He is the editor of Source Book of Ophthalmology (1995) an essential bibliographic guide to writings in the field. In addition, he has published several general guides to Ocular History and famous Ophthalmologists.

In 2014 he and co-author Sarah Artzen published the selected correspondence between William Shainline Middleton, a University of Pennsylvania-trained physician and Erwin Heinz Ackernecht, a German emigre whom he met at the University of Wisconsin and who became a distinguished medical historian. The two became close friends during the middle years of the 20th century. In 2015 Dr. Albert published an illustrated catalog of his extensive collection of Medical Lecture Tickets: Tickets to the Healing Arts: Medical Lecture Tickets of the 18th and 19th Centuries. This collection now resides at the University of Pennsylvania Archives. Nor has Dr. Albert ignored the general reader with titles like Men of Vision: Lives of Notable Figures in Ophthalmology (1993) and his History of Ophthalmology which was published in 1996.

Book Collecting and Antiquarian Interests

Like other notable physicians, Dr. Albert has a passionate interest in the history of medicine in general and, in particular, in his chosen field: Ophthalmology. During the course of his lengthy career Dr. Albert has written on the importance of the history of science and medicine, generally; and he has demonstrated through his writings and collecting a passion for documenting the history of ophthalmology and has been active in promoting the preservation of medical instruments.[v]

A member of the exclusive, Grolier Club, Dr. Albert is also a book collector of note and in addition to acquiring books, ephemera and manuscripts, Dr. Albert has also collected two separate collections of ocular instruments: antique spectacles and ophthalmoscopes. Among the other curiosities that Dr. Albert has collected is an extensive set of historical Medical Lecture Admission tickets. Dr. Albert began collecting antiquarian books on the history of science and medicine while he attended medical school in Philadelphia in the 1960’s. Like many physician collectors, Dr. Albert focused his energies on collecting books related to the development of his medical specialty.

Philanthropy

Given the extent and breadth of Dr. Albert’s multifaceted career, he and his wife, Eleanor are mindful of the future expressed through his donations of several hundred significant books on the history of Medicine and Science to the University of Wisconsin Library Special Collections and the University of Pennsylvania University Archives and Records Center and Penn Libraries' Kislak Center for Special Collections. In the latter case he has also donated a large collection of historical Medical Lecture Admission tickets to the University’s Archives and he has made a major donation of his medical instrument collections, books, trade cards and ephemera to the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.

Selected Bibliography

A. Journal Articles

Bibliography of Scientific Articles

B. Monographs and Textbooks

Albert Daniel M. and Harold Scheie. A History of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania. Springfield, Ill.: C.C. Thomas 1965.

Albert, Daniel M. and Eduard von Jaeger. Jaeger's Atlas of Diseases of the Ocular Fundus: With New Descriptions, Revisions and Additions. Philadelphia and London: W.B. Saunders, 1972.

Albert, Daniel, M and Paul Henkind. Men of Vision: Lives of Notable Figures in Ophthalmology. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1993. Classics of Ophthalmology Library Series.

Albert, Daniel M. Frederick A. Jakobiec, Eds. Principles and Practice of Ophthalmology. 6 vols. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1994.

Albert, Daniel M, Edward W.D. Norton, and Reva Hurtes. Source Book of Ophthalmology. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Science, 1995.

Albert, Daniel M. and Diane D. Edwards. The History of Ophthalmology. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Science, 1996.

Albert, Daniel M. and Frederick A. Jakobiec, Eds. Atlas of Clinical Ophthalmology. Philadelphia, Saunders, 2000. 2nd Ed.

Albert, Daniel M. and Arthur Polans. Ocular Oncology. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2003.

Albert, Daniel M. & Mark J. Lucarelli, Eds. Clinical Atlas of Procedures in Ophthalmic and Oculofacial Surgery. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 2nd Ed.

Albert, Daniel M. The Dean and the Historian: Their Lives and Times Through Letters. Philadelphia: Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 2014.

Albert, Daniel M. and Carol Benenson Perloff. Tickets to the Healing Arts: Medical Lecture Tickets of the 18th and 19th Centuries. New Castle, DE and Philadelphia: Oak Knoll Press and University of Pennsylvania Archives, 2015.

Scheie, Harold and Daniel M. Albert. Textbook of Ophthalmology. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1977. 9th ed.

References

  1. ^ [1], Pulse: Penn Medicine Development and Alumni Relations. March, 2015.
  2. ^ [2], Profile of Dr. Daniel Albert, McPherson Eye Research Institute, University of Wisconsin.
  3. ^ Albert DM, Zeidman I. Relation of glucocorticoid activity of steroids to number of metastases [with B16 melanoma].Cancer Res. 1962;22:1297-1300.
  4. ^ Albert DM, Scheie HG. Nevus of Ota with malignant melanoma of the choroid. Arch Ophthalmol. 1963;69:774-777.
  5. ^ Analysis undertaken by the author.
  6. ^ Arch Ophthalmol. 1994;112(9):1153.doi:10.1001/archopht.1994.01090210037012

See Also

Eye Neoplasm

Presbyterian Medical Center

Dr. Daniel Albert, University of Wisconsin Biographical Source

Daniel Albert, American Academy of Opthalmology Laureate Award

Daniel Albert, Elzevier Award

Dr. Daniel and Eleanor Albert collection of cigarette and trade cards, circa 1835-1975. Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.