One to Watch: Alison Bozung, OD, FAAO

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Please share with us your background.

I grew up in a rural neighborhood outside of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I am the youngest of four siblings, so our house was never quiet! Not only was my home surrounded by farmland, but my high school was also centered between four corn fields. There were 57 of us in my graduating class. My favorite hobby growing up was playing the flute, and if given the chance—and a little more talent—I would have loved to pursue music as a career!

Describe your current position.

I work at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida. The majority of my time is spent in the 24/7 Ophthalmic Emergency Department, which is the only one of its kind in the United States. On any given day, I may be juggling one patient with a new vitreous hemorrhage, another referred in for a large corneal ulcer, and another with acute diplopia.

Many of our patients are either uninsured or lack access to health care, which creates barriers when treating them for high acuity pathology. The majority of my patients do not speak English, so I learned to speak Spanish fluently and also speak a touch of Creole. I help run our student externship program and am the co-director of our residency program.

Who are your mentors?

Douglas C. Rienks, OD, introduced me to the complexities of the eye, talked about things such as corneal hysteresis before they were “cool,” and taught me how to interpret OCTs and visual fields as his scribe before I graduated from college. We still keep in touch. In fact, he and his wife, Linda, attended my wedding last year in California.

Robert P. Wooldridge, OD, FAAO, is not only an incredible clinician and lecturer, but has also always done whatever he could to help promote my lecturing career, even as a newbie fresh out of residency! For that, I am very grateful.

What has been the most memorable experience of your career thus far?

A patient with severe graft-versus-host disease had developed a corneal ulcer. I saw him frequently, and we got his ulcer healed just in time for him to walk his daughter down the aisle without having difficulty seeing or needing to wear dark sunglasses. He was so grateful, and I nearly teared up with him when we talked about it later. Stories like this remind me that being able to help our patients truly is a gift.

What are some technological advances that you find exciting?

I am curious to see how precision medicine will affect global health care and how our understanding of the interplay between genetics, environment, and lifestyle grows over the upcoming decades.

Describe a typical day in your life.

I work Monday through Friday. On the weekends, if my husband, Andrew, and I are at home and not out camping or exploring a nearby Florida island, a typical Saturday would probably start with us taking a boat out on the ocean to trying our luck fishing. In the afternoon, we might go for a bayfront run around downtown or head out to a local rock climbing gym. For dinner, we’d probably invite a few friends out to one of the many awesome outdoor venues in Wynwood or Brickell.

What advice can you offer to individuals who are just now choosing their career paths after finishing optometry school or a residency?

More often than not, good things don’t just happen to people. If you want something, you should actively pursue it. Find people who are good at what you want to do (eg, lecturing, running a small business, inventing a new device, publishing) and become friends with them. Rarely is a path untraveled in our profession, so don’t be afraid to reach out to those who have gone before you and seek mentorship.