Most of us understand the link between ultraviolet (UV) radiation and skin cancer, but many are less aware of the connection between UV radiation and eye damage.  UV radiation, whether from natural sunlight or artificial UV rays, can damage surface tissues and internal structures of the eye, such as the cornea and lens.  Long-term exposure to this radiation can lead to cataracts, skin cancer around the eyelids, and other eye disorders, so I thought I’d share this article about protecting yourself from UV Radiation.

-Dr. Pascucci

It’s an unwritten rule that living in southwest Florida means either you must golf or play tennis. While not an avid golfer, I’ve played my fair share of tracks over the years and was willing to rekindle that interest. However, while my wife Bev was open-minded, it quickly became clear that golf would not become her passion. We’d have to be content staring at the golf course from our living room window, rather than from the tee box! Still, we earnestly wanted to find an activity to participate in together, so Bev suggested tennis. Neither of us had ever played before, so it sounded like a great idea.

Three lessons in, we’re far from the US Open, but we’re hitting more balls, making more first serves and are excited and enthusiastic about the game. It’s allowing us to get some great exercise, although some days it is like exercising in a sauna! It’s provided a welcome respite after a full day of patients or surgery. I’ll be especially grateful to Bev when toting only a small tennis duffel, rather than two full sets of clubs, on vacation in the future!

I’m excited to share that I’ve been asked by one of my former medical school professors, Dr. Wolfgang Vogel, to co-author a book.  This will be my 2^nd time serving as a co-author, and my 5^th time contributing to a textbook (authoring chapters).  Those writings had all been to help educate my peers within the medical field.   This will be my first time authoring a book written for the public.

It will be written as a resource for you, so you can better understand how to care for your eyes.   The primary topic will be diseases of the eye, but it will cover much more than that.   It will explain how the eyes work and provide detail on its various structures. The goal is to help empower each person to care for and protect their vision.  As you become more informed about your eyes, you become your own vision advocate.  As an eye care professional, that is something I eagerly look forward to participating in.

As a surgeon, I spend a great deal of time discussing technical topics and medical perspectives.  I love what I do, but I don’t want to limit myself to being defined by my career.  I hope to be known as a great person, not just a great surgeon. So I wanted this post to give you a glimpse of who I am, after hours…

A couple years ago, my wife Beverly and I took a trip to India.  The doctors were hungry to learn how they could better care for their patients and I have to admit it was incredible to experience such an earnest desire to learn.  I was able to teach new surgical procedures to Indian doctors and Bev trained the nurses on the latest techniques.

It was awesome to be able to share that experience with my wife.  Bev was actually my surgical scrub nurse for a number of years when I first opened my practice, and she continues to work in other areas of the practice today.  Many couples find it challenging to work together, but we believe it has strengthened our marriage in some ways.  When we come home from work and talk about our day, we “speak the same language”.  We’ve always had a lot of synergy and work very well together.  And that synergy carries over to the kitchen!

We enjoy golf and boating on occasion, but cooking is definitely one of our favorite pastimes.  We have yet to take a cooking class, but we love to find new recipes in trendy cookbooks or online. Dinner time is always exciting at our place as we rarely prepare the same meal twice.  We absolutely love Mediterranean food and many weekends we’ll spend hours preparing a meal.  For the holidays we often turn down invitations because we’d much rather do the cooking ourselves and it’s typical for us to have several friends and neighbors over for dinner in addition to our family!

Continuing the new-found family tradition of a career in medicine, our daughter, Christina is currently attending an accelerated nursing program at NYU, expected to graduate in this year.  I couldn’t be more proud of her…well, maybe just a little – if she chooses a specialty in eyecare!