Alumni News
Optometry
General News
Josephine Ibironke, OD ‘03, Resident ‘04, MPH, FAAO, knows the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) at Drexel University’s Elkins Park campus not only as its dean, but also as one of the program’s graduates. Today, she leads the same institution that helped shape her career and plans on continuing PCO’s long tradition of clinical excellence and leadership in optometric education.
In this welcome video, she draws on her own experience as a student and often speaks about the “PCO DNA,” which is the strong clinical foundation, leadership, and commitment to patient care defined by the College since 1919 and continues to prepare graduates to practice optometry around the world.
Welcome Video:
My name is Josephine Ibironke, and I serve as the dean of PCO at Drexel. I was actually a student here. I graduated in 2003. I stayed for one more year and completed my residency in pediatrics and binocular vision in 2004.
PCO DNA — when we are talking about DNA, we’re talking about the foundation that we get in our clinicals, about the excellence that we get, and the leadership that we get. It’s all embedded in who we become when we start practicing.
I am a product of that. I’m a product of starting clinic (at The Eye Institute, PCO’s clinical facility) early, and that’s what gave me so much confidence by the time I graduated. When I finished my residency, I was even more confident and ready to take on the world.
You cannot get to any part of the world where optometry is being practiced and not find a PCO graduate. Our reputation is so strong because we’ve been around since 1919. We were one of the first schools of optometry. We have always been the leader in innovation, the leader in how we take care of our patients, the leader in excellence, and the leader in clinical preparation of our students.
That is our reputation, and I’m so glad that I now get to be the dean at the institution that I graduated from.
