Lifetime Achievement Award

2012 Recipient

W. Bruce Jackson, MD, FRCSC
Professor of Ophthalmology
University of Ottawa Eye Institute

Remarks by: Dr. Sherif El-Defrawy, MD

This year we are honouring our friend and colleague Bruce Jackson with the Canadian Ophthalmological Society's highest award, the Lifetime Achievement Award. This distinction allows us to recognize Dr. Jackson's illustrious career, now approaching four decades, and his role as a physician and surgeon: a visionary leader, a skilled administrator, an accomplished researcher and a talented educator. Dr. Jackson is revered by his patients and esteemed by his colleagues, residents and students.

Dr. Jackson completed his medical degree at the University of Western Ontario and his ophthalmology residency at McGill, a place he would be intimately involved with for over 20 years. Following residency, Dr. Jackson completed a mini fellowship in vision enhancement at the Lighthouse in New York. This was followed by a year of fellowship training in cornea and external disease at the Francis I. Proctor Foundation, University of California, San Francisco. It was at the Proctor that his research interests were sparked and became focused on bacterial infections, antibiotics, antivirals and the testing of new products.

Dr. Jackson returned to Montreal in 1974 to join the faculty of McGill, eventually becoming the Ophthalmologist in Chief at the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1986. One year later, he became Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at McGill. This would be the beginning of a major career change, taking him from clinical work and research into the realm of leadership and administration, for which he had significant aptitude and talent. Not only was he the Chair of the department at that time but he was also the Residency Program Director and Research Director.

In 1991 Dr. Jackson made a major move to Ottawa to chair the department there and to develop the new University of Ottawa Eye Institute. With a conscious effort to focus the theme of the Eye Institute on new and emerging technology, his research interest also made a major shift to focus on excimer laser, machine design, software, and outcome analysis. Over the last two decades, Dr. Jackson has become one of the preeminent individuals doing refractive surgery in North America.

Under the leadership of Dr. Jackson, the University of Ottawa Eye Institute grew to become one of the premiere eye centres in the country. He developed a vision research program, recruiting six PhD researchers and clinician scientists who worked in collaboration: a bench to bedside model that has become a model for the University of Ottawa. He established an excimer laser refractive research and teaching program that not only paved the way for our understanding of refractive surgery, but also became the first teaching hospital refractive surgery program while also funding much of the basic and clinical research in the department. This research at the University of Ottawa Eye Institute launched the biosynthetic cornea and the discovery of the gene for Wagner's Syndrome. Prior to finishing his term as Chair in Ottawa, Dr. Jackson ensured the completion of a second floor on the Eye Institute specifically designed to promote basic-clinical research collaboration, assessment and development of emerging technology, and administration of clinical trials. Over this period he established three endowed Chairs for basic research and ocular pathology.

Dr. Jackson had the foresight to recognize the importance of allied vision health professionals in the provision of vision care in this country and established an Ophthalmic Medical Technology program in 2003 that has graduated 43 students to date and has become a University of Ottawa Honours BSc program.

On the national front, Dr. Jackson was president of the Association of Canadian University Professors of Ophthalmology and in the late 1980s established the Cornea and External Disease Society, encouraging its growth as a clinical and research forum for Canadian ophthalmologists and becoming an integral part of the COS meetings. He was also the course director for the Sally Letson Symposium from 1992 to 2006, taking the symposium from a local meeting to one of the largest and most highly regarded meetings in the country.

Dr. Jackson has been honoured with several awards over his career including the Cornea Society's Castroviejo Medal Award (2007), the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Senior Achievement Award (2005) and the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal (2002). He is much in demand as a lecturer and spends about 25 percent of his time travelling to deliver lectures and teach residents and colleagues.

While Dr. Jackson has many ophthalmology related passions, his biggest passion is Mary Lou, his childhood sweetheart and wife of 45 years, his two children David and Julie, and his five grandchildren. There is nothing he enjoys more than spending time with his family on the lake and sharing the joys of a boat ride together (on one of their small fleet of boats!) or a sunset on the Kawarthas.

Sherif El-Defrawy, MD