Elaine Binkley, associate professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences in the Carver College of Medicine, shares the importance of keeping an open mind.

Tell us about your hometown; how did it shape you?

I am from Columbus, Ohio. I am the oldest of four kids and growing up with hard working parents and the responsibility of helping to take care of my younger siblings helped to shape my work ethic and desire to help others.

Tell us about your hobbies/outside interests.

I am an avid distance runner. I ran cross-country and track (5,000 and 10,000 meters) in college and earned All-American honors twice in women’s cross-country at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. I have run 10 marathons including the Quad Cities Marathon and Main to Main Marathon in Osage, Iowa. I enjoy running on the trails in Iowa City year-round.

What is your favorite hang out place?

Java House coffee shop.

Can you share a recent book/movie/performance that you found compelling and why?

I enjoyed the book "The Covenant of Water" by Abraham Verghese. The writing style is unique and does a great job humanizing a medical condition. I have a research interest in neurofibromatosis type 2 which made the story even more compelling as the book deals with a family affected by this condition.

What attracted you to the University of Iowa?

I came to the University of Iowa for my vitreoretinal surgery fellowship and stayed on for additional training in ocular oncology and then joined the faculty. I was attracted to Iowa by the collegial nature of the faculty on the retina service and their commitment to providing high-quality care to all patients. The faculty are world leaders in their areas of expertise but remained approachable and passionate about teaching. These are qualities that I have tried to emulate in my career as a faculty member and I love being around colleagues who are committed to excellence and helping our trainees succeed.

What shaped your interest in your discipline?

I entered medical school completely open minded regarding a specialty and thought that I would most likely enter into internal medicine or one of its sub-specialties. As I went through my clinical rotations, I was initially going to go into neurology. We had one elective rotation choice during our third year and I selected ophthalmology as I thought it would be useful to be able to perform a good optic nerve exam as a neurologist. I ended up falling in love with ophthalmology and the fact that we can learn so much about a patient's systemic health from their eye exam, and also that we have such amazing interventions to be able to preserve vision for patients. I was inspired by wonderful mentors at Ohio State and then at University of Iowa to pursue training in vitreoretinal surgery and ocular oncology. Having mentors who emphasized the importance of putting patients first and having a passion for what you do helped shape my career.

What is the best advice you received as a student and do you still follow that advice today?

Some of the best advice that I received was to keep an open mind. Whether it be picking a class, choosing a research project or subspeciality, or thinking about a patient problem, this advice is still important and I try to follow this today. Some of my favorite classes, research projects, and clinical experiences are in areas that I never thought that I would have had any interest in if I hadn't tried them.

In what ways have you engaged with professional activities outside the institution (local, regional, national)?

Ocular oncology is a relatively small sub-specialty in ophthalmology and very few ophthalmologists are dual trained in ocular oncology and vitreoretinal surgery. This makes it even more important to remain engaged with professional activities outside of the institution to keep up to date with the latest advances in the field and contribute to our knowledge of how to best take care of patients with diseases like uveal melanoma, vitreoretinal lymphoma, and systemic syndromes with ocular tumors. I have been involved with national committees such as the BCSC textbook writing committee for ocular oncology and pathology and present at national meetings like the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting. I enjoy presenting research and discussing difficult cases with colleagues at international meetings such as the International Society for Ocular Oncology meeting which will be held in Goa, India this year.

How do you see your work impacting your field?

Taking care of patients is the most important part of my work. Taking high-quality care of patients in clinic and the operating room is my main priority and I work hard every day to do the best that I can for my patients and my trainees. I love my research projects because they are directly related to the patients that I care for and are an extension of clinical care, helping to find better ways to treat blinding and life-threatening conditions. One of the wonderful things about being at the University of Iowa is the opportunity to collaborate with world-class colleagues in other disciplines to find unique solutions to patient problems. I hope that the work that I do has a role in moving the needle forward in our ability to treat patients with ocular tumors, and also show that this work can be accomplished in a collegial, multidisciplinary environment.

What changes are on the horizon for your work or your discipline?

Applications of technology such as the use of cell free DNA to identify micro-metastatic disease and targeted therapies/adjuvant therapies for patients with metastatic uveal melanoma will hopefully improve survival for patients with this disease. Targeted biologic therapies are already improving care for patients with diseases such as von Hippel-Lindau disease that can have associated vision-threatening ocular tumors and more of these novel therapies are on the horizon.

What piece of advice would you give to today's students?

Identify good mentors who are committed to helping you push yourself to be the best that you can be and listen to their advice.

In closing, what words of wisdom would you like to share, what quotation or person inspires you, what does the next chapter look like?

Keep an open mind and take advantage, full advantage, of every learning opportunity that you have. Learning how to do something well takes hard work and patience, and you learn from your failures as well as your successes.