By Marti Webb Slay
One might think that meeting rocket scientist Wernher von Braun would be the most significant development of someone’s life, especially if von Braun was something of a father figure. For ophthalmologist Robert Morris, MD, founding physician of Retina Specialists of Alabama and president of the Helen Keller Eye Research Foundation, knowing von Braun was indeed significant. However, his help was really just a starting point, and Morris has moved on with passion to make significant contributions of his own.
Morris met von Braun when his family moved from California to Alabama in the 1960s. His dad was hired to start the Marshall Space Flight Center under the auspices of the new space agency NASA. After Morris’s father died when he was a high school senior, von Braun took him under his wing and even put a good word in for him when he learned Morris wanted to attend Purdue. He got his acceptance letter without even applying.
“I was influenced by all the successes of the moon landing program,” Morris said. “I ended up at Purdue University studying physics, and I was going to be a Navy pilot and then hopefully an astronaut. Then I failed my eye exam, and I went to Plan B, which was to go to medical school.”
While he was a medical student, Morris learned of a program that would allow him to enter the Air National Guard and become a fighter pilot. This time he passed the eye exam, so he went into the Air Force and achieved his goal of becoming a pilot, even though it meant taking a break from medical school halfway through his senior year.
“Now I was going to be scientist astronaut with my medical degree,” he said. “Then they knocked the Apollo program out. So it was time to focus on my medical career, and I chose ophthalmology because inner space was opening up at that time. We landed on the moon in 1969, but we didn’t reach the back of the human eye until 1971.”
Deep eye surgery became his specialty, and although he was offered a chance to do research at Duke, Morris chose to return to Alabama. “I came back because our state had four million people with no deep eye surgeon,” he said. “I’ve been practicing at the Callahan Eye Hospital ever since.
“In my career as a retinal surgeon, I’ve been particularly interested in repairing injured eyes. Fortunately, 97 percent of eye injuries are to only one eye. I’ve been focused on helping the three percent who go from perfect vision to almost no vision in an instant with injuries to both eyes. These injuries are most frequently caused by auto accidents, explosions, and shotgun injuries.”
Over the years, Morris has restored vision to a number of patients who had been told they would never see again. Along the way, he met a UAB scientist named Magnus Hook. Hook told Morris that he had studied Helen Keller in high school in Sweden. He was surprised that in Alabama, Keller’s home state, there was no eye research foundation named after her.
After giving it some thought, Morris contacted the Helen Keller family. “Keller’s niece, Patty Johnson, had lived with Helen Keller at times and felt ownership of the legacy,” he said. “I asked her if this was something she wanted to do, link her famous aunt’s legacy with modern biomedical research, and she said, ‘absolutely.’
“We’ve concentrated on eye injury, macular surgery, retinal detachment, and infections in the eye after cataract extraction. Now we’ve gotten interested in floaters. A lot of people suffer from floaters, and I’m not talking about just nuisance floaters. I’m talking about lots of stuff going across their vision and interfering with their reading and driving and sometimes missing a step that causes them to fall. It’s the simplest surgery we do, but it’s got to be done with a risk factor close to zero, just like cataract surgery.”
The foundation began with eye research, then expanded to include education about Helen Keller’s life. Now it has split into two foundations, one focusing on research, and the other on education. And Morris continues to grow in his admiration of Keller.
“We recognize that Helen Keller and the work we do could have a halo effect for the Alabama” he said. “I worked with Governor Siegelman to put Helen Keller on the state quarter and worked with Governor Riley to put the statue of her in the Capitol.”
Morris has produced a digital book of Keller’s quotes, but he knows many of his favorites by heart. “She said, ‘life is either a daring adventure or nothing.’ She also said, “I will not just spend my life, I will invest my life.’ And she really acted on that. She was a pioneer and civil rights advocate for America in the 20th century, for children, minorities, the disabled, indigent people. She called on America to live up to its ideals long before many others did,” Morris said.
Morris found his
“research brother”
from Hungary
“I met a young Hungarian retina surgeon in 1989 while attending the first international congress on ocular trauma in Tel Aviv,” Morris said. “He came to Birmingham to do eye research with me on injuries the next year, for a one year fellowship.
“Ferenc Kuhn, MD, ended up staying for 22 years and became my ‘research brother.’ He is now the most traveled ophthalmologist in history, having lectured in 67 countries on every continent but Antarctica. We developed the talks together, and he presents them while I hold down the fort here in Birmingham. Together we developed the Birmingham Eye Trauma Terminology (BETT) that has become the language of eye injury used worldwide.”
Kuhn is now the director of research at our Birmingham based Helen Keller Eye Research Foundation. The American Society of Ophthalmic Traumatology called him the father of modern ocular traumatology and named their highest lecture after him.
