Find Your Charge Through a Career in Optometry

Eyesight is something that is very powerful. To be able to give that to people who are experiencing vision issues, or help keep their eyes and bodies healthy, is why I became a Doctor of Optometry. My favorite part of my job is working with my colleagues. We are a team, and when we work together, we can provide solutions for our patients that make a huge difference in their lives. Every day, patients come to us with issues regarding their eye health—macular degeneration, glaucoma, even keratoconus. We’re able to provide them with treatment methods for those as well as monitor accordingly. Looking at the big picture, we’re saving vision—and lives.

Being a Doctor of Optometry is fueling my life goals as well as my career goals. I really like to travel, and I eventually want to start a family. Optometry gives me the time and financial means for both of those things. In my day-to-day life, soccer has always been an escape for me. I’ve been playing since I was in the 5th grade. Carrying that on throughout my life has always been very important for me. It’s a way to unwind and reenergize. It allows me to put everything to the side and focus my energy into something else that I am passionate about. This creates the space for me to be fresh and alert for my patients during the day at work.

One of the best parts of being a Doctor of Optometry is connecting with patients and seeing how they use their eyes on a daily basis. I get a picture of their overall health because the eyes are connected to the whole body—it’s the only place you can see all the blood vessels and the optic nerve without having to do surgery—so you can see many systemic health issues. One of the other reasons I became a Doctor of Optometry was to decrease the barriers to eyecare in vulnerable and underserved populations, such as homeless veterans and people with disabilities. I’ve gone to Peru and Belize to help bring eyecare to those who otherwise don’t have access, and I still work with veterans today. I also worked in Juneau, Alaska, and White River, Arizona, on the Apache Reservation, where I worked with Navajo and Apache residents.

I have many other passions in life as well. I’m sort of an adrenaline fanatic—whether that’s hopping on a small plane in Alaska, rock climbing, or skydiving. On a more day-to-day basis, I refocus and recharge by doing things like Bikram-style hot yoga and kayaking. I once kayaked for 10 hours in the rain in Alaska. I love martial arts, too. I’m a black belt in taekwondo. It’s important to me to have time to do these things that I love because it helps me connect with patients on a personal level who may have shared interests.

I became an optometrist because everybody needs health care, and optometry empowers me to provide an affordable health care to my community. I’m able to have an immediate, life-changing impact on patients—whether that’s through detection of a serious health issue, or through lenses that help them see their world. It’s about being the best I can and giving that to everyone else. If you’re a student interested in challenging yourself, interested in providing for your community, you should become a Doctor of Optometry.

Developing relationships is everything to me. Optometry gives that to me, and so does my event planning business. It’s how I express myself and bring people together. Seeing everybody connect with each other, to see all the faces, all the people joyous, free, relaxed, just enjoying the company and forgetting about all their worries, it’s a happiness that can’t be bought. Optometry also gives me the financial security to be able to raise a family, but more importantly, it gives me the time to spend with that family.

At 27 years old, my business partner and I opened our own optometry and vision therapy practice. As a vision therapist, I work with kids with binocular vision disorders, lazy eyes, eye turns, or reading issues, and adults with traumatic brain injuries, post-stroke, or post-concussion vision syndrome. Because I see them on a biweekly basis, and through rehabilitating their vision, I get to understand how they’re using their eyes. So as they progress through their program, I witness all the positive changes they go through—allowing me to really feel the benefit of what I’m doing with them every day.

For me, when I career shadowed other medical doctors, I found that some didn’t get to begin their life outside of work until they were much older. That’s not what I wanted. I wanted to be present and young with a family. Optometry allowed me to do that. There’s not that many eye emergencies to take me from my family. My quality of life is wonderful, and I have everything I could ever ask for.

I chose optometry because I wanted to be a voice for people that can’t have a voice or don’t know how to use their voice to say if something is wrong. That happens a lot with children with special needs. They can’t tell you if they can’t see. So I come in, and I’m able to advocate for them, tell the parent, “They need eyeglasses. They need vision therapy. They aren’t thriving because they can’t see, and I can easily change that.” I’m also changing lives in the lecture hall. I’m educating future doctors that are then going to impact others’ lives. It’s like I’m impacting all these lives that I will never even know about.

Optometry has fulfilled me. I’m able to feel good about what I do every day, go home, and have a life of my own. Salsa dancing is my escape from everything. It makes me feel alive. I dance competitively, and practice four or five nights of the week (sometimes every night of the week if I can). And every Friday, I attend salsa night at the local aquarium.