The team at Tompkins Knight & Son (TK&S) Optometrists, in Northampton, United Kingdom, saw an opportunity to take some of the intimidation and scary out of pediatric eye care and they took it — they published a children’s book.

Specifically, Sunny’s Trip to the Optometrist is an illustrated, step-by-step tale of the pediatric patient experience at TK&S Optometrists, down to the signature mustache on The Eye Wizard, also known as Brian Tompkins, BSc (Hons), FCOptom, FBCLA, part owner of the practice.

Additional characters in the book share a likeness with real-life TK&S eye care providers Keyur Patel, BSc (Hons), OD, as Dry Eye Doc; Debra Grant, BSc (Hons), MCOptom, MBABO, as BV Girl; and Rebecca Ireland, BSC, MSOptom, as Dispensing Optician.

Dr. Tompkins says having characters that share the likenesses of the members of the practice has also served to create a positive buzz around the practice.

Beginnings
So how did the TK&S team go about creating the book?

Grant says they outlined the various steps of the eye exam, with a particular focus on using child-friendly language. She adds that Daniel Owens, of Orange Juice, a PR firm based in Australia and a friend of the practice, took a pass over the text to ensure the accessibility of the medical terminology to the reader.

“We spent hours agonizing over the words and the language,” agrees Tompkins. “The number of rewrites it took was huge!”

Next, Ireland worked on the illustrations, with an eye toward diversity.

“We wanted to make sure we represented people of all backgrounds in the book,” she asserts.  

Tompkins says he then took the project to a publisher to print, and the original idea for the project was completed with the offering of the ebook on Amazon earlier this quarter.

Incidentally, the original idea for book distribution was to send physical copies to new patients ahead of their first appointment. But with the costs associated with publishing a physical book, sending out an ebook has been the most operationally efficient distribution method, say the TK&S team.

Grant notes she’s seen positive feedback from parents educating themselves through the book and finding their practice from the publicity surrounding it.

“While I’m examining one child, parents are often reading the book with another child,” she explains, noting that physical books are in the practice’s waiting areas. OM