My Son The Doctor

I can't tell you how great it is to practice with your child. It was something that I had sort of given up on based upon the initial reaction of my children when I first broached the subject. When my children were much younger I invited both of them to consider optometry as a career. They both answered without hesitation: "No!" My son is the eldest of my two children and he wanted to be involved in the movie business. He initially wanted to write and produce movies. He majored in English when at UCLA and received his degree in that field. My daughter studied business and graduated with a double major at SMU in business and Spanish. She worked in a business climate for a couple of years and then decided that teaching was what she really liked. She received her credential and she now teaches at a private school in Santa Monica, California. She does all of this including being a mother to her wonderful family which includes her attorney husband, Marcos and her two children, Molly and Matthew.

My son initially worked for a few production companies and did some acting. After a few years of doing this he felt he was not going in the right direction. He then sold life insurance for a major insurance company, but did not really like doing it. After about a year of working in the insurance business, he came to me and asked if I was still interested in him going into the field of optometry. I said that I definitely was, and off he went.

This was no easy task as he had been an English major. He was a natural at writing and really loved it, but he had always taken the path away from math and science. Now he had to go back and take all the classes that he had initially avoided. He had to get good grades in the subjects and he had to take an entrance exam for optometry school. He did all of this and was accepted into a great school. While in school he met a terrific young lady who was also in optometry school and they are now married and both practice with me at Village Eyes Optometry in Westwood Village, California.

It is terrific to have these young and energetic doctors to practice with. We frequently discuss mutual cases and we are always talking about our field of optometry. At family outings, everyone knows to avoid us because we will almost always be discussing eyeballs in one sense or another. For me this is fun and challenging. It is a real pleasure to see them working so hard and enjoying what they do.

We have a wonderful family practice at Village Eyes Optometry. All five doctors get along extremely well and we all interact with our terrific staff and appreciate one another. My wife, Sissy, also works at the practice and takes care of all the daily business requirements that are needed to keep our business on track. For me, it's as good as it can get. I am looking forward to many more years of practice with my son, my daughter-in-law, and the rest of our optometric family.