Dear Friends,
If you are reading this blog, then you are probably researching information on how to help someone you know. I hope that I can help answer some of your questions or at least point you in the right direction. In the meantime, please visit our main website, www.visionandlearning.org for information on how vision can impact academic performance.
I’m a mom that likes to know about the people that I am going to work with, including my children’s teachers and doctors, so I figured I would start blogging about myself before I begin blogging about what I am passionate about. This post is everything you every wanted to know about me and more, ad nauseum.
I received my Bachelor Degree in Pre-Optometry Studies in 1995 from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I am actually a native Las Vegan. I knew I wanted to be an optometrist since I received my first pair of contact lenses when I was 10 years old. My sister was an optician in the time, so I learned about primary care optometry initially through her (when I told her that I was writing this post, she reminded me that it was all because of her that I am an optometrist today). While I was researching optometry schools, I discovered that there were subspecialties within the field. I watched an introductory video from the Illinois College of Optometry and they spoke about vision therapy. I liked the idea of being able to help people beyond just seeing clearly, so I shadowed a behavioral optometrist, a doctor that offered vision therapy in her practice, in the summer of 1994. There was one patient in particular that sticks with me. She was 6 years old and was diagnosed with an Esotropia (one eye turned in) and Refractive Amblyopia (one eye had reduced visual acuity even with glasses on). She was very introverted and did not like to look anyone in the eye. She was very self-conscious of how she looked. I watched this little girl transform that summer into a happy, extroverted person with straight eyes. Her life was changed forever and I knew that was what I wanted to dedicate my career to.
I chose Pacific University College of Optometry for my four year graduate training. I received training in all aspects of optometric care including primary care, treatment and management of eye diseases, prescribing medications,refractive surgery, co-management, glasses and contact lenses. However, the best part of my training was in pediatric optometry, vision therapy vision perception, visual information processing, sports vision, vision-vestibular disorders and brain injury. I applied and was chosen as one of nine interns to train at the Pacific University Pediatric and Strabismic Referral Center. There I worked alongside leading ophthalmologists and behavioral optometrists to receive specialized training in the treatment and management of strabismus (eye turns), amblyopia (lazy eye) and acquired brain injury, particularly how to provide pre- and post- vision therapy to patients that underwent strabismus surgery. Then I had the wonderful privilege of externing at Dr. Robin Lewis, FCOVD and Dr. Howard Bacon’s, FCOVD office in Chandler, AZ, where I learned how vision therapy really works in a private clinical setting. During that time, I earned the honor of joining the Beta Sigma Kappa International Honor Society and received the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) Award for Excellence in Vision Therapy.
In addition to working towards my doctorate in optometry, I concurrently attended Pacific University’s College of Education to work on my master of education in visual function in learning. This provided me with the knowledge of our special education system including IDEA and ADA laws, Title I Reading programs, Multi-disciplinary Teams, Section 504 plans and Individual Education Plans (IEPs).
Graduating in 2000, I moved to San Francisco, CA, and began working with Dr. Carole Hong, FCOVD and Dr. Kristina Stasko’s vision therapy practice managing their program, where I met my husband, Robert Nurisio, COVT, who was a vision therapist there. We moved to San Diego, CA in 2001 as I had the unique opportunity to work in a non-profit vision therapy referral center called the Insight Vision Center with Dr. Robert Sanet, FCOVD and Linda Sanet, COVT. This center provided vision therapy services to those patients who otherwise could not afford it. To keep monies we raised slotted for scholarships rather than the overhead to run the clinic, I began a for-profit center where we also contracted with the school districts to provide vision therapy for those students that qualified for services under their IEP.
During my time in San Diego, my husband and I had two children, Morgan and Ronin (our own developmental laboratory). I also guest lectured at The San Diego State University in Professor Howard Wierdre’s, PhD, various Special Education courses each semester, held various in-services for various acute rehabilitation centers in the area such as Scripps Mercy Hospital and Palomar Hospital, one-on-one sports vision training off-site for trapshooting, volleyball, baseball and golf, and in-services for various private schools on subjects ranging from vision development, identifying vision problems in the classroom to vision rehabilitation.
In 2006, after three years of completed requirements, I was accepted as a Fellow of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (FCOVD), which board certifies me as a specialist in vision therapy and vision development.
At the end of 2006, I learned that my sister had thyroid cancer. In April, 2007 our family dropped everything and said Goodbye forever to San Diego and moved to Spring, Texas to be near her. I worked for Dr. Travis Moffatt and Dr. Troy Wagner in Magnolia, TX to help build their vision therapy program while we settled. In 2008, after surgeries and radiation therapy, my sister has been cleared of cancer.
Our family has now become Texans (y’all) and in the area for good. I have been appointed the COVD Texas State Coordinator and a member of the Texas Optometric Association. I am now working with Dr. Ann Voss, FCOVD, owner of Bellaire Family Eye Care, NeuroSensory Center of Bellaire and The Vision Learning Center, where my husband is Vision Therapy Manager. We are currently in process of opening a satellite vision therapy center in Spring, TX called Vision Learning Center of Champions (opens early 2009). Look for our new website soon at www.visionlearningcenter.com and www.championvision.net.
If there is anything you would like to know, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I want to post about what you want me to write about, not just on what I think you want to know! Please register as a user to post comments in order to help us keep spam under control.
Thank you for “listening” and I looking forward to talking with you,
Dr. McMains
