There is a special aspect to Kellogg’s ophthalmic ultrasound services; they are overseen by a physician.
Director Bernadete Ayres, M.D., is an ophthalmologist whose fascination with ultrasound inspired a career. It was “the seduction of the image—it attracts you,” she says.
Dr. Ayres, a native of Brazil, undertook a fellowship in ophthalmic ultrasound after her ophthalmology residency training. In Brazil, physicians perform their own ancillary testing, such as fluorescein angiography and ultrasonography. It was there that she became immersed in ultrasound technology.
She had been practicing ophthalmology for several years in Brazil when an opportunity arose for a fellowship in oculoplastics at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Ayres’ skill in ophthalmic ultrasound became apparent at Wilmer, and she was soon drafted to help with ophthalmic ultrasound there.
Following a return to Brazil to practice oculoplastics for eight years, she was subsequently enticed back to Wilmer to become its senior ophthalmic ultrasound specialist. Later she moved to the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami before coming to Kellogg in 2013 to lead our ultrasound department.
During her four years at Kellogg, Dr. Ayres has authored several papers and become a national leader in ophthalmic ultrasound, teaching at national and local meetings of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Joint Commission on Allied Health Personnel in Ophthalmology and the Ophthalmic Photographers’ Society. She introduces our first-year ophthalmology residents to ultrasound in their first few weeks of residency training, and continues to instruct them throughout their three years at Kellogg. She recently traveled to Ethiopia to spend a week teaching in the ophthalmology residency training program at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa.
At Kellogg, Dr. Ayres is joined by two talented ophthalmic ultrasonographers—Tanya McClendon-Hubbard and Elizabeth Parrish—who also have several years of clinical experience in ultrasound. This dynamic team performs more than 2,000 ultrasound examinations each year.
Dr. Ayres says she relishes ultrasound’s ultimate challenge: “For treatment we have a lot of tools,” she points out, “but diagnosis is the beginning of the process.”