Profile

I see a range of problems. Some people are pretty healthy and they come in with pink eye or allergies.  Some people just want to get their eyes checked or to get glasses.  I also see a wide range of diseases. I see a lot of glaucoma and cataracts.  There is also a big epidemic of macular degeneration as well. I see pretty much anything that can go wrong with your vision. 

I see the patients, assess them, listen to their complaints and look at their eyes so I can see what is wrong with them.  If it is a surgical problem, then they get scheduled for surgery. If the problem is infection, then they get a medication. Depending upon the type of disease, sometimes I am discussing what they can do to try to contain their disease or cure it. 

I do a lot of different types of procedures. I use a variety of lasers to treat conditions like diabetes, macular degeneration, and glaucoma. I also use lasers to get rid of glasses for healthy people. I also do aesthetic procedures for skin tightening.

My office is pretty small. It’s about 1000 square feet. There is a mini-OR suite in the office for minor procedures. Some of the surgeries that I perform, like cataract surgeries, are performed at a hospital.

I have 5 employees who work for me. I have been adamant about hiring friendly, happy people. The patients who I see are mostly adults.

On a typical day, I arrive late.  During the day, I see about 30 patients. I see about 10-15 patients in the morning.  Every day is different. You can never predict what you are going to get. Some days are really light and simple and routine. Today, a person had a stroke in our waiting room. That was pretty exciting but that’s not typical. 

It can be anything. You can’t be bored. We take a lot of photographs. We do a lot of procedures. We do a lot of administrative tasks.  It is a very active environment. I try to do all of my cataract surgery at the same time, usually on Thursday mornings. I like to do LASIK procedures to get rid of glasses on Friday afternoons so the patients have a weekend to recover. When I am really busy, I am energized. It is invigorating for me to have a full day.

Good dexterity. 

Good judgment. You need to know when to be conservative. 

Good bedside manor.  

To avoid mistakes, you have to be present all of the time. You can’t be too reactionary. Things don’t happen too fast. You have to be strategic and think about what you are doing. You have to be restrained.

I sometimes go to meetings.  I’ve gone to Mexico with the Flying Samaritans to do some missionary surgery.

What I love most about my job is that I can make a difference most of the time.

I don’t like that the government or insurance companies are standing in the way of patient care. It is very frustrating. It’s hard to watch my patients suffer.

I get inspired by my patients.

Probably my father. He was a surgeon. He was always an optimistic and clever person. Whenever I had problems that were difficult, he would always come up with a solution.  He taught me to think that when something seems really difficult, you just haven’t figured out the answer yet. Don’t give up.

Having good friends and a good support network. 

One thing my father always told me. The second mistake is the worst mistake.  If you do have a situation where things have not gone as you planned, you should really think carefully about your next move.

I think it is really important to do what you love and to love what you do and be good at what you do. If you are thinking about being a doctor and it is something that you are good at, you should stick with it.

I was always told by my colleagues that I should go into OB/GYN and pediatrics because I’m a woman.  You have to stick to your guns. You can always find people who will be supportive. Listen to those people and try not to listen too much to people who are not supportive. If you are not cut out for something and you are not good at it, you can take that to heart.  Make sure that you love what you do. If you are good at it, you will tend to love it more. 

If you are premed, I would encourage you to take as much science as you can.

I would have liked to have more children. 

I have a philosophy that life is a journey and that you make choices and learn from them. I started out thinking it was all about where you end but I think how you respond to what is in front of you is more important than where you are. What’s important is how you handle things. Some people have great fortune and some people have poor fortune. What matters is what you do with the tools you are given.

I’m a pilot. Having good judgment, going through a checklist, knowing when to fly or not to fly is very similar to what I do at work as an eye surgeon. You have to know when not to do something. It is just as important to know what not to do as it is what to do.

I love travel. I love yoga and dance. I love wellness, healing, and spirituality.

I just went against the grain. When my daughter was little and I had limited time with her, I would bring her everywhere with me. She went to the OR, the ER and the ICU. She watched me do procedures with patients when she was still holding a bottle. I brought her with me because it felt natural. The funny thing was that even though she was prohibited from being in a lot of the environments, a lot of the nurses were mothers too and they would help me and watch her while I was checking on patients, like a baby in a neonatal ICU. No one ever questioned me. 

I was always watching her and doing my job.  I guess if she had been a difficult child, I couldn’t have done that. I thought it was important for her to know that the time I spent away from her was doing something to help other people. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to spend time with her but I was doing something socially conscious. I think that she could appreciate that when she was little because some of my patients were little kids.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a veterinarian. I loved animals.
Ultimately, I chose medicine because it seemed more socially significant.

I chose eye surgery in part because I was very good with my hands. I loved the concept of microsurgery. I was also very good at math and science.  I was always at the top of my class. 

I majored in chemistry and biology because I was good at science.  I took all kinds of science classes. I was at the top of my class in organic chemistry, which was the most difficult class. I had an aptitude for it. I had enough science for a dual major.

The main reason that I became an eye surgeon was because it seemed like a field where you could really fix things as opposed to a lot of other fields where you are pretty much giving people medications and not really curing anything.

I found microsurgery fascinating. When I was in training, people would give you the wrong information when they gave you their history.  It would be confusing. With ophthalmology, you can look into the eye and see everything.  The person doesn’t even have to speak the same language.  You can do most of your diagnosis from what you see.  We can fix 90% of the problems.

I was always very compassionate and people felt comfortable around me. People would tell me their problems.  There is something about me that gives them reassurance.  I think that itself can be good medicine.  When people come in and they are apprehensive, they want to look at a face that they can have faith in and someone who can communicate well. When people are having surgery, especially eye surgery, they are a little more nervous. I take extra measures to put people at ease. A lot of surgeons just want to do their job and they are not thinking about the patient’s experience, they are just thinking about the end result. I’m always trying to make the patient comfortable and not so nervous. I think patients appreciate it.

Balancing career and motherhood was a challenge. 

When I finished training in the early 90s, it was a challenge to set up my own practice. I’ve been a solo practitioner since about 1998. In those days, they said I couldn’t do it – nobody does it. I was told that I had to work for other people and be in a large group. I had tried that I didn’t like it. I didn’t have enough influence over how things were run.  Often, my patients weren’t treated the way I wanted. I felt frustrated so I started my own practice. Having my own practice is still a constant challenge but to me it’s worth it.