Q&A with Dr. Macy Koepke, Resident
What inspired you to choose your career path?
I got my first pair of glasses at age four, actually. I failed the preschool eye exam and I was terrified that I failed a test. So they called my parents and told them that I failed the exam, and then I went to my optometrist, and from there, they prescribed me my first pair of glasses. My mom tells me that I told her that there are blades of grass and there are letters on signs and things that I’d never realized because my vision obviously was poor before that. So, it made a big impact, obviously, on my life. Then, as school progressed, I was always a math and science kind of girl and I knew I wanted to go into medicine and my optometrist was a big part of my life growing up, obviously. So, it all kind of fell into place.
Why did you choose to work at the lighthouse?
I just had a love for the Lighthouse because of the diverse patient population that we get to see, as well as the diverse amount of ocular diseases and ages. So I think the biggest thing that made me choose The Lighthouse is their mission and how they want to take care of their patients. The thing that really stuck with me throughout residency is that there’s always something more we can do. I think that that’s a really important thing to live by – even though someone might not have their vision anymore, there’s always something more we can do. So we can always fit them with a magnifier or bioptic or help them use their vision to the fullest, and even if they don’t have any vision left, we can work with occupational therapy to help them with anything they would do normally with their vision and live their life to the fullest.
What is unique about The Lighthouse?
It’s hard when you go to a place that just does your ophthalmology appointment. They tend to be a lot more busy, they see a ton of patients in a day. So sometimes the patients are left with more questions or want things explained to them more. So luckily, at The Lighthouse, we do get the time in our schedules to really sit down and listen to the patient’s needs and have that one-on-one communication for as long as they need us.
Happy Doctors’ Day!
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