SOCIAL

  THE WAY I SEE IT

SEEING IS BELIEVING

IF YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY, LEARN THE ART OF LOOKING THE PART

ON MY return flight from the Cayman Islands — yes, thank you, it was nice — I was thinking about Ernest Hemingway and a particular patient.

Last week, I walked into the exam lane to see my patient waiting for me while talking on her cell phone in the most annoying, shrill-like voice I have ever heard. Really, if there were an option to listen to fingernails running down a chalkboard or this patient, I would have chosen the former (I just gave myself the chills writing that!).

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Yet, it was not the voice that threw me; it was her hair. What a mess! It were as if she fell asleep with a Flowbee hair cutter attached to her head and then a flock of guano-emitting pigeons — also known as flying rats, or “squab” (which Hemingway was forced to eat as a starving author) to that select group of bird connoisseurs — spat rainbows all over her head.

That was not even the worst of it. This woman is a hairdresser! Yes, this rainbow-colored bird’s nest was supposed to represent this woman’s “best foot forward.”

Am I the only person who thinks that when someone chooses a vocation, that person should then become an embodiment of said profession? For example, I would expect that a chef can cook better than the guy flipping burgers at Mickey Ds, a landscaper would have a nicely manicured lawn and, yes, a hairdresser would have finely coiffed tresses. How else do you advertise that you know what you are doing?

Imagine someone who works at a perfume counter smelling like yesterday’s garbage. “I really do like the Jean Paul Gaultier for men, but I can’t get this smell of rotting carp out of my nose!” How can you take these people seriously?

DO YOU SMELL THAT?

Now project this on to our profession. I think that people feel we must hold eyes as the most precious of all organs, and sight as that most life-changing sense. Confession: I don’t.

That’s right, I think smell is the most sacred of all the five senses. And can you imagine a world where you cannot taste? Though, I suppose if you were invited to your boss’ house for dinner and the Mrs. cooks a tuna casserole with anchovies and chunks of blue cheese — barf — that would be a solid time to lose your sense of smell/taste.

For the Karpecki’s of the world, the crisp, flinty, not-too-dry and, yet, very heady, wines would be reduced to one word: “meh;” the succulent taste of a perfect rib eye would taste like “nothing;” and the joyous taste of my fiancé’s amazing sugar cookies would be for naught! You might as well eat Hot Pockets and Quaker Rice Cakes for the rest of your life. Nope, this optometrist would gladly trade seeing what is on my plate for the chance to savor all the flavors that Baskin-Robbins has in stock!

Does this place me in the same category of my patients who are the anti-ambassadors of their jobs? Am I the speech therapist who doesn’t care that I have a lateral lisp?

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

I don’t think so for a second. I wear stylish frames; I make sure my eyes look white; and I manicure my eyebrows. I, unlike my hairdresser patient, embody my profession and, through my outward appearance, place importance on proper eye hygiene and clear vision, so my patients will do the same. OM

MARC BLOOMENSTEIN O.D., M.B.A., currently practices at Schwartz Laser Eye Center in Scottsdale, Ariz. He is a founding member of the Optometric Council on Refractive Technology. Email him at mbloomenstein@gmail.com, or visit tinyurl.com/OMcomment to comment on this article.