Centennial
Q&A with Karen Jones, OD ‘00
Karen Jones, OD ‘00 came to the optometric profession on a non-traditional three-year journey, after a career that started in the electrical engineering field. After four years of working as an engineer at International Business Machines Corporation – better known as IBM - Dr. Jones quickly realized she did not share the same passion for engineering as much as many of her coworkers. After speaking with her optometrist, Dr. Henry Green, ’74,it was like a light bulb went off, and this thought came into her head, “I should be an optometrist, what do they do all day?” What finally sealed her fate in becoming a Pennsylvania College of Optometry student were a conversation with Robert Horne, who at the time was the dean of Student Affairs and oversaw the Optometry Learning Experience. After sitting in on one of Dr. Lorraine Lombardi’s lectures and experiencing firsthand the strength of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry’s (PCO) clinical experience, Dr. Jones was sold.
As we approach PCO’s Centennial Anniversary, we had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Jones to reminisce about her journey into optometry, and her vision for PCO and the future of the profession.
What do you hope for the College as it celebrates its next 100 years?
I hope to see that the College maintains its tradition of staying at the forefront of optometry. I think it’s amazing that the school has been here 100 years and I, just in my lifetime, in my association with PCO have seen it evolve from a College to a University and I’ve seen these other fields of study come into the curriculum, or within the purview of the University. And so, I think PCO has done a very good job of reinventing itself. I think if we never change, or grow, or develop then we get stagnant. If you stay stagnant, you die. So, I hope that it continues to be a dynamic institution that it does what it can to reinvent itself to stay at the forefront of optometry.
What was one of the most memorable and valuable experiences you had as a PCO student?
One of the most memorable and valuable experiences I’ve had as a student at PCO was the Summer Enrichment Program. Basically, for those of you who are not familiar with it, it’s designed to help students transition to the first year of study at PCO. I chose to do it because I was coming from a non-health profession background to optometry. It took a lot of time, but what I took away from that is those people that I was in that program with, that I spent all those hours in the library with, those are some of the best friends that I have to this day now that we’ve all graduated optometry school.
Another one of my great memories from PCO is probably Dr. Lombardi. I would say this about Dr. Lombardi, and I find this fascinating in people, when you find somebody who is excited about what they do for a living, you can tell it, you can feel it, you can tell that it is more than just a job; it’s a joy. You can see that in the way that she lectures, it makes you want to live and breathe anatomy. It’s funny because, in the years since I’ve graduate from PCO, I have said to many people: ‘If I could just go back and sit in an anatomy class, that would just be the greatest thing for me.’
I can also not forget to mention Mr. Robert Horne, who was the director of Admissions when I first got to PCO and then became the dean of Student Affairs. Mr. Horne was always somebody who, I think, was a great champion for students. He definitely has a presence, but he also believed in helping students get into school and also matriculate from the school. He’s one person that I felt pushing me, sometimes even more than my parents, to do well while I was a student at PCO.
Coming out of school, what was your dream job?
When I was in my last year or during my residency at PCO, I did have ideas or could imagine where I would be. I knew I was going to be in a group practice. I knew I was going to leave every day at 5 p.m., I was not going to work any weekends, and I was going to practice in North Carolina. So, I started sending my resume out, had some interviews, and didn’t get any job offers. But that’s okay because I’m Karen Jones. So I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina without a job. I actually interviewed with a doctor who, his ad said something to the effect of ‘lots of disease, nice office, latest technology.’ So I said okay this is where I want to go. I met the doctor at a restaurant, and he starts talking about his practice...it’s in a Lenscrafters. He was talking about how great it was and I’m like ‘Okay, how soon can I leave this meeting?’ So, I thanked him for his time, went home, and said ‘there is something better for Karen there.’ About a month later when I was still unemployed, I called him up. ‘Is that position still available because I’m free?’ And, I was and so the first three to four years of my practice life I actually worked for two doctors at Lenscrafters, where I got to work every day past 5 o’clock and every Saturday. And so, I think it was to help me learn one, how to be a doctor, also I think to help me be a little bit humble, and also to realize that patients are patients. It doesn’t have to be this big glamorous practice. Everybody wants good visual health and everybody wants to see well.
So from working for other doctors at Lenscrafters, I actually ended up having my own commercial leases at JC Penney and also Sam’s Club, and all this time I was waiting for this private practice group opportunity to open up and nothing ever did. And, one day it just came to me that, if you want this opportunity you have to create it. So that’s when I started working on my practice which is now about to be 10 years old. I opened up my practice cold, have been working very hard at it and now it is a place that I can look back over the past 10 years and say ‘I’m proud of what I have done.’ I have relationships with children who have grown up to be young adults and I’m just always excited to see how they progress through life. I’m interested in the people that I meet and the relationships I have. It has been a blessing to come the pathway that I have come. But, is it how I thought I was going to get to 17 years out of PCO? Absolutely not, but I am grateful for it.
In addition to completing her residency at PCO, Dr. Jones received a number of awards including: the Alumni Association Award, Dr. John E. and Ethel M. Crozier Memorial Award, the Beta Sigma Kappa Award, Noir Low Vision Award, Conforma Laboratories Award, and the Wallace F. Molinari Ocular Pharmacology Award.
