Eyeworld

EW NEWS & OPINION 22 March 2015 by David F. Chang, MD on whatever projects I wanted to. It was simultaneously fun, scary, and challenging, but incredibly rich with experience. After a year, I wasn't ready to stop and I arranged to extend my sabbatical for another year. Well, I just kept extending it for another year at a time until it became clear about 5 years later that I was never returning to my retina practice. Although it had never been the original intent, we now had a thriving photography business with commercial and magazine assignments, gallery sales, museum exhibitions, and a growing portfolio of published books. Dr. Chang: How hard was it to retire from medicine at the pinnacle of your career as one of the preeminent medical retina specialists in the world? Dr. Schatz: It was not an abrupt de- cision, but rather a gradual, almost seamless transition from medicine to photography. Interestingly, I frequently get asked by physicians and other professionals, such as For years I juggled parenthood and a very busy career involving teaching, research, and clinical care. But after my youngest daughter left for college in 1987, I decided to get more serious about learning photog- raphy. On the weekends I read ev- erything I could about photography, collected photography books, and frequented museums and galleries. I converted our dining room into a studio and after 4 to 6 years, my photographs were being published in books and displayed in muse- ums and galleries. I started getting requests to do editorial work for magazines and commercial work for advertising agencies. Although this was still just a weekend hobby and my retina referral practice was busier than ever, my wife finally suggested that we take a sabbatical and spend a year in New York to fully devote myself to photography. My associ- ates allowed me to take the year off, and we moved into a studio in SoHo in 1995. Pursuing photography full time was so exciting and interesting—I was shooting every day and taking Dr. Chang: What sparked your initial interest in photography, and how were you able to pursue this hobby during your medical career? What inspired you to turn this hobby into a professional career? Dr. Schatz: I think most physicians have stimulating interests outside of medicine. As a 23-year-old medi- cal student, I was introduced to an ophthalmology resident at a party. I was planning to be a cardiologist, but was impressed by his passion for ophthalmology—how interest- ing he thought his field was and the fact that he would be providing both medical and surgical care for patients of all ages. As a result I decided to spend some of my senior year elective time doing an oph- thalmology rotation and ended up loving it. At that very same party, I met a physician in the military who had just returned from Korea and had brought back a new Nikon F camera. A number of us were admiring how wonderful this camera was and how it let the user manipulate and mod- ify so many parameters—the ISO, ASA, and shutter speed and aperture. Although I'd always had an interest in photography, something just clicked when I saw that new camera, and I was hooked. I had a cousin in the military in Korea at the time, and I was able to purchase a Nikon F camera with a 50 mm lens through him. So it was a strange coincidence at a very formative time in my life, but out of that one party I ended up with both a career and a hobby. Through the eyes of Howard Schatz, MD I 've always been impressed with how many ophthalmologists enjoy and pursue photography. Perhaps it's our under- standing of optics, our unique appreciation of image quality, or our professional need to document and monitor ocular pathology. And in choosing ophthalmology as a career, I suspect that many of us concluded that the fundus is the most beautiful and photogenic part of human anatomy. But the personifica- tion of this harmonious amalgamation has to be retina specialist Howard Schatz, MD, who has remarkably reached the pinnacle of both professions through completely sepa- rate and sequential careers. I'm sure many of us have fantasized what it might have been like had we chosen an entirely differ- ent career path. But consider the energy, the talent, and the audacity it took for Howard to actually find out. For UCSF ophthalmology residents like myself in the early 1980s, clinical faculty member Howard Schatz was revered for his charismatic and passionate teaching. Howard had the busiest retina referral practice in San Francisco, but lectured and published extensively while volunteering countless hours teaching residents. He authored several classic textbooks that were notable for their exquisite angiographic and color fundus photographs. On a personal level, Howard was one of my most influential mentors. His advice and example both planted and encouraged the idea (heretical to me at the time) that you could still contribute to clinical research and teaching while in private practice. It was quite a shock, therefore, when this inspiring role model literally switched careers at the height of his prominence in ophthalmology. What began as a 1-year sabbatical in 1995 evolved into an equally brilliant and suc- cessful career in photography that is being celebrated in a newly released 2-volume retrospective collection of more than 1,000 of his best photographs, Schatz Images: 25 Years. To accompany my interview of Howard this month, he graciously allowed me to select some of my favorite photos from this new retrospective book for publication in EyeWorld. Visit this website to see more: schatzimages25years-glitterati.com. David F. Chang, MD, chief medical editor Self-portrait of renowned photographer (and ophthalmologist) Howard Schatz, MD Underwater Study #1, Katita Waldo, photographed in Fairfax, Calif., Feb. 1993. Chief medical editor's corner of the world

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