Tracy Schroeder had always wanted to be a doctor, but her stomach had different
career goals in mind.
"When I was doing my undergraduate degree, planning to go in for medicine,
I volunteered at a hospital. It's a good thing I did that, because I learned
that every time I saw someone bleeding a lot, I vomited. I started to think
maybe the only career in store for me was one as a professional vomiter!"
Luckily, Schroeder had a great chemistry teacher at the time that directed
her towards a career that she (and her stomach) could live with. Since Schroeder
was excelling in her chemistry, physics and biology classes, her teacher suggested
she check into a career as an optometrist. She looked into the career, went
for it and has never looked back.
Schroeder is a certified optometrist in Indiana doing research and running
a private practice. In spite of the fact that optometry was not her first
choice, she says, it's certainly not a second-rate profession.
"I love helping people. I enjoy solving their vision problems and making
them more comfortable. Each patient is like a new puzzle for me to solve and
so I see new things every day, and continue to learn new things," says Schroeder.
As an optometrist, Schroeder cares for a patient's eye and vision problems.
She uses a variety of instruments to evaluate the health of her patient's
eyes and prescribes medication, glasses or contacts, or ocular (eye) therapy
if necessary.
Diagnosing and treating vision problems demands a lot of technical knowledge,
but Schroeder says people skills really define a good optometrist.
"Compassion is so important in this line of work. Taking the time to listen,
and then explaining things to the patient can make eye problems much less
traumatic for a person. People are always surprised when I take the time,
and that's a little sad."
In Schroeder's field of expertise, compassion and a willingness to explain
things to her patient is very important. She's a pediatric optometrist, so
almost all of her patients are under 12. Schroeder believes a trip to the
"eye doctor" is always scary for kids, so she does her best to make her young
patients as comfortable as possible.
"I don't think it's just a matter of holding up a puppet and trying to
distract the child while you're coming at his or her eye with a huge instrument.
You have to explain what's going to happen, so there are no big, scary surprises."
"The majority of the working day for an optometrist deals with helping
patients improve their eye health and vision and often this can have an immense
effect on their lives and how they perform at school, at work or at play,"
says Dr. Alphonse Carew.
Carew enjoys the work because it allows him to make a positive difference
in his patients' lives. "Whether it's by helping a young child see the blackboard
with glasses, or getting the teenager out of the glasses and into contact
lenses, or helping the elderly deal with vision loss or direct care as they
address medical problems like cataracts and glaucoma," he says.
Recently, Carew had the opportunity to make such an impact on a patient's
life. A 14-year-old girl was referred to him by her family physician. She
suffered from headaches.
"When I examined her and looked at her optic nerve inside the eye, I knew
right away that she was in serious trouble," says Carew. "I referred her to
a neurologist and the next day she was operated on for a brain tumor. Without
immediate care she certainly would have had neurological damage. As it turns
out she has some vision loss in one eye -- otherwise everything else is fine."
Schroeder's work with young people continues beyond her office. She has
been researching visual factors that can cause problems in school. Much of
Schroeder's research focuses on dyslexia, a condition that causes people to
read words, letters and numbers out of order.
"Often students who are perceived to be slow because they haven't learned
to read as quickly as other kids find out later in life that they have dyslexia.
It's nice to be able to tell these kids, 'It's not your fault. You're not
stupid and we can do something to help you.'"
Schroeder's long-term goal is to work as a visual consultant to school
districts. She feels she can help more kids overcome their personal challenges
if she doesn't have to wait until they come to her.
"Often I don't see the children until the problem with their eyes becomes
so bad that their parents notice something is wrong. At the schools, I would
be able to catch visual disorders like dyslexia before it became a self-esteem
problem for the child and diagnose vision problems before they get really
bad."
Helping kids defeat obstacles has always been a goal in Schroeder's work,
but she has also had her own personal challenge to overcome as an optometrist.
Being one of the youngest people in her field, she says, people are often
surprised to find out she is "Dr. Schroeder."
"I am 5'1" and I look too young to be out of high school, much less have
a doctorate. I get a lot of surprised looks from patients about it. Many don't
take me seriously at first because of my appearance."
In spite of this, Schroeder says people usually begin to gain confidence
in her after talking with her for awhile. This doesn't mean they always listen
to her advice, however. Like many people in the medical field, Schroeder has
encountered a few patients who refused to pay attention to what she told them.
Schroeder remembers a time when one of her young patients had a viral infection
(a cold) in her eye. When the child's mother found out about the infection,
she insisted it was caused by something Schroeder had done and refused to
follow Schroeder's advice on how to treat the infection.
"She took her child out of the office and swore she would never come back.
A few weeks later, the school insisted this child should see me because the
child's infection was so bad," says Schroeder.
"These situations can be very frustrating, especially when it's a parent
getting in the way of your care of their child. They usually just want what's
best, but it doesn't help if they don't take your diagnosis seriously."
In spite of challenges like this, Schroeder says optometry is a field with
many rewards.
"I try to do my best for every patient who walks into my office. And when
a patient says thank you, or when children improve their performance at school,
it makes the job feel really worthwhile."