Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society – Alumni Society of the Department of Ophthalmology, UCSF

Frederick C. Cordes
Frederick C. Cordes

 

Welcome

The Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society was formed to foster and encourage active participation by alumni in the teaching programs of the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of California, San Francisco. Please see our History, below.

Please contact your 2017 – 2018 Cordes Presidents, Eleanor Becker, MD (eleanor.becker@kp.org) and Ronald Melles, MD (ronald.melles@kp.org) or Cordes liaison Molly Boylan Libera, Esq. with questions or comments (mary.boylan@ucsf.edu or 415.476.4016).

Pay Membership Dues

One fee gets you full benefits of the Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society and admission for you and a guest to all Cordes events. 

The ACTIVE CORDES MEMBERSHIP fee is $150.

PAY YOUR ACTIVE CORDES DUES

 

2017 Cordes Events

  • 2017 cocktail reception held during the American Academy of Ophthalmology conference – reception taking place this year on Saturday, November 11, in New Orleans at M.S. Rau Antiques
    • 630 Royal Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
    • 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Reception
    • Cocktails and light refreshments will be served.
    • RSVP by contacting Susan Ford at susan.ford@ucsf.edu or 415.476.2463.
  • 2017 Cordes Business Luncheon – to be held this year on Saturday, December 2, 2017 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the Room of the Dons at the Mark Hopkins Hotel (999 California Street, location of the UCSF December Course). RSVP by paying your Cordes dues.
  • 59th Annual Cordes Scientific Meeting – to be held immediately after the business luncheon on Saturday December 2, 2016 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in conjunction with the UCSF December Course. CME credit will be offered. The speaker lineup for the Cordes Session is simply outstanding.  To register for the Scientific Meeting, please pay your Cordes Dues.

 Additional Benefits of Cordes Membership

  • Membership wall certificate
  • Communications and mailings that keep us up to date with each other as well as with the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Ophthalmology
  • Recognition in the roster of Active Cordes Members in an issue of the Visions newsletter, produced by That Man May See. Every issue of Visions seeks to highlight accomplishments of our alumni. You are invited to send information to mary.boylan@ucsf.edu to be included in an upcoming issue
  • Cordes membership directory containing your colleagues’ updated information

Make a Gift to Support Resident Education

As alumni, each of us can take special pride in the increasing luster of your own UCSF education when our residents succeed and become leaders nationwide. The number of Heed Fellowships awarded overwhelmingly come to our UCSF residents. Since 2009, 47 percent of all UCSF Ophthalmology graduates have received this honor. Our program garners more Heed Fellowship awardees than any other in the country, a significant testament to its caliber. Our alumni gifts make a huge difference in the $100,000 spent annually by That Man May See for the department to provide trainees with didactic materials, surgical training supplies, educational travel, and funding for their research programs.

The education and training of the next generation of clinicians and scientists is one of our highest priorities at UCSF Ophthalmology. Please make a tax-deductible gift to That Man May See to support resident education. Help us inspire the future of ophthalmology. Click here to learn more about supporting resident education through That Man May See 

MAKE A GIFT

 

Meetings

2008:

2009:

2010:

2011:

2012:

2013:

2014:

2015:

History

In the winter of 1948, as the Medical School community (and America) was coming back to normal after the end of World War II, Dr. Michael J. Hogan sent out an inquiry to former residents about having a reunion of the U.C. Eye Residents. The handwritten rough draft of his letter survives (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). Carbon copies of the final draft have been found and date the beginnings of Dr. Hogan’s ideas to February 16, 1948 (Fig. 3).

Having received many favorable responses to his initial proposal, Dr. Hogan (a.k.a. “Uncle Mike”) drafted a formal letter to all of the known residents of the U.C. Medical School program (rough draft handwritten notes are seen on Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 along with a list of residents). He worked from a partially handwritten list of the then known U.C. residents (Fig. 6 and Fig. 7).

His final draft was typewritten on August 17, 1948 (no word processors!) and we do not have an original, but, some carbon copies of his original invitations still survive, one of which is reproduced here (Fig. 8).

Of course, we all must remember that U.C.S.F. medical center was not a “campus” of the University of California at that time, it was governed by a Provost, and considered a division of U.C. Berkeley. The Berkeley campus conferred any undergraduate degrees at that time.

That original meeting of the University of California Eye Residents Association was held as scheduled, on September 11, 1948, and was considered a great success. In succeeding years, the process for holding the meeting and the resident responsibilities for organizing the meeting became more refined. For example, in 1953, when second year resident Vernon Lightfoot, M.D. was the resident in charge of getting the meeting together, his letter was a simple, mimeographed, form letter that allowed for easy responding by potential attendees such as Dr. Harrington (Fig. 9). By the time Dr. Mullen was responding for the meeting, it had boiled down to returning a simple postcard for reserving your attendance (Fig. 10 and Fig. 11).

By the mid-1950s the rosters of the University of California Eye Residents looked like the one reproduced in Fig. 12, 13, 14.

Over the years after Dr. Hogan started the meetings in 1948, Dr. Cordes’ role in this meeting for the residents became of more importance, not only because of his faithful attendance, but also because he would later consistently arrange for the banquets to be held at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, among other things. When Dr. Cordes retired as Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology, in 1959, members felt that the University of California Residents Association should be renamed in his honor because he had trained or was chairman during the training of all of the known graduates of the program at that time. He was, also, the first chairman of the “Department” of Ophthalmology. Previously, Ophthalmology had been known as a “Division” in the Department of Surgery of the School of Medicine. Since 1959, therefore, this organization has been known as the Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society. (also see Historical References).

In 1999, we celebrated the 40th reunion of the Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society (see Scrapbook Images). The actual 50th anniversary of the University of California Eye Residents Association occurred in 1998.

Therefore, historically, the 2008 meeting will actually be the 60th reunion of the University of California Residents Association. In 2009, the annual meeting was the 50th reunion of the Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society.

 

Rosters

A current Roster is available electronically (MS Word format) upon receipt of an email request from a verifiable member of the society. Send your request to: cordes@vision.ucsf.edu. Some additional rosters available online are the following:

 

Scrap Book

Click here to see images from the 1999, 40th reunion of the Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society.

Click here to see images from the 2008, 49th Annual Banquet.

Click here to see images from the 2009, 50th reunion of the Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society, provided by Greer Geiger, M.D.

Click here to see images (part two) from the 2009, 50th reunion of the Frederick C. Cordes Eye Society provided by Greer Geiger, M.D.

Professional photographs are available:
Genevieve Shiffrar photographed many of the events associated with the Cordes Society Anniversary meeting. She has put online a nice selection of photos for your enjoyment. There’s an easy-to-use shopping cart to order prints. Just go to
http://shiffrar.instaproofs.com/enterEvent.php?id=116706 or to
http://shiffrar.instaproofs.com/ and clink on the link “Cordes Society Anniversary.” If you have any questions, please email Genevieve directly at genevieve@shiffrar.com

 

Historical References

Dr. Cordes’ A.J.O. Special Issue (click here)

Dr. Cordes’ Carter Collection Essay (click here) – A series of typewritten essays, written by historical campus figures, is contained in the Carter Collection of the Rare Books Room of the Main Library. This essay was written by Dr. Cordes as he contemplated his retirement from a 40 year relationship with the Parnassus campus. It recalls his memories from the earliest years of the Medical School of the University of California. It is written in his own style and, if read in its entirety, gives you a feeling that you might know him personally. It is reproduced here in its original formatting. R. Dudley Stone.