February, 2025
My earliest memory of eye care was when I accompanied my mother for her yearly eye checkup.
At the time the clinic did not have any eye practitioners, so we had to wait for one who was doing
rotations between different centers. I was around sixteen at the time and going through that stage
where I was very anxious about the future.
After the appointment, all I kept thinking about was the gap in this profession and the monetary
value that comes with that. My interest for eye care was not as a result of my want to help people
nor change lives, it was simply for the money. From then on, my goal was to be an ‘eye doctor’
.
The term optometry was foreign to me as it is to most people in my country. Everyone simply
calls eye practitioners opticians and I was none the wiser. In my high school days, I came across
the word ophthalmologist. Quite a mouthful. My new or rather, redefined goal was to become an
ophthalmologist. A medical doctor, that sounded lucrative.
I studied hard with a clear objective. When my final results came in, my options were limited
and for the first time ever I saw Bachelor of Optometry and Vision Sciences among the courses I
was qualified for. After doing some research I placed it as the last option, in the hopes that luck
would shine on me and my first option, Medicine and Surgery, would go through. That did not go
as planned, thus why I am here.
It will be quite an understatement to say that I was disappointed. And for the most part of my
first year in the university I questioned why I had just meekly accepted to walk this path.
You can imagine the shock I got when I decided to google (bad idea) how much an optometrist
earns in my country. My perfectly planned future went out the window, leaving me utterly
disoriented. Since I had nothing better to do, I stayed.
I am grateful that I do not have any regrets for staying put in this profession. You may ask, what
changed? Honestly, nothing. I just got exposure.
For quite some time I had thrived or so I thought in the bliss ignorance brought and when I
finally decided to pay attention to what was happening, I caught a glimpse of a new world, one
that tugged at my heart strings. This came shortly after I watched a documentary about eye
practitioners offering free eye care services in rural areas all over Africa. One case stood out the
most to me. An elderly woman got a cataract surgery, and for the first time in almost ten years
she could see clearly. Her eyes welled up when she could make out her grandchildren’s faces. I
became very emotional because all I could conjure up in my head was an old memory of seeing
my neighbour with practically the same condition and not knowing what it was, trying to make
sense of it by superstitious doctrines.
For the first time in a long time I thought of someone other than myself. The desire to make them
see what I took for granted. This colorful world, of blue skies and green grass. No one should be
denied that. I read through my roles as an optometrist and understood. Understood just how much
of a difference I could make. Understood the new perspective and joy I could be bringing to all
sorts of people, who were once confined. That I could be a ray of hope to all my patients and be
there for them when they finally see the world crystal clear, no longer restricted. It may not be
what I had thought I would be studying several years ago but I’m glad that each new day presents
me with the knowledge to someday make someone smile.