State Journal
Section: 55 Good Things About West Virginia
July 3, 2009
By Pam Kasey
Morgantown – Something Fairmont native Judie Charlton saw as a medical student at West Virginia University affected her profoundly.
It was on a rotation through ophthalmology.
“One day you’d see a patient who couldn’t see and, with some of the procedures we do, they see better within 24 hours,” she said. “It was such a wow factor to watch these patients have instantaneous happiness. That grabbed me more than long chronic care for high blood pressure.”
Charlton went on to complete her residency and glaucoma fellowship at WVU and, later, to join the faculty.
Today, she chairs WVU’s Department of Ophthalmology, leading the physicians, scientists and other faculty who care for patients, conduct research and educate future physicians at the WVU Eye Institute.
As a researcher, Charlton has conducted studies related to visual disability and to dry eye; she holds two patents for dry eye medications.
As a practitioner, she has traveled each of the past seven years to the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia to provide care for the island’s residents as part of a team of specialists – an endeavor that is fulfilling and, sometimes, adventurous.
“Last year I was doing a cataract surgery on a young girl who had been accidentally injured by her sister and had a traumatic cataract,” Charlton recounted.
As she was getting ready to put the lens implant in the girl’s eye, an earthquake started.
A West Virginia product saved the day.
“Fortunately it was an Alcon lens implant, made in Huntington, that they had donated,” she said. “This particular implant is designed to be a little sticky to adhere to structures in the eye so I was able to put it on the surgical drape. It stuck and survived the earthquake.”
WVU’s residency training program often ranks in the top 10 percent of 117 U.S. programs in the nation with an ophthalmic surgery simulator.
The program serves the entire state, all the way to southern West Virginia, which Charlton said has some of the highest risk factors in the nation for the three leading causes of blindness: macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.
She is developing a three-pronged program that would introduce medical residents to the area, diagnose eye disease and research the most cost-effective ways to conduct screening.
Asked how she found her way into administration, Charlton responds in a surprising way: by reference to her ancestor Morgan Morgan, who is creditied with founding the militia that became the West Virginia Army National Guard and to her relations the Pricketts of Prickett’s Fort.
“Anything I do really pales in comparison to what my family has done in generations past, but I just like to do service,”she said, tying it together.
“Administration is just being of service, often doing stuff no one else wants to do but somebody has to do it to try to organize us to the next level.”
Charlton has received the American Academy of Ophthalmology Achievement Award. She has been honored as a WVU School of Medicine Distinguished Teacher and received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Service.