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The mission of Prevent Blindness Texas is to prevent blindness and preserve sight. We are leaders and change agents in the eye health space here to empower you!
Hey, it's your eye health experts, Prevent Blindness Texas, and welcome to Eyespiring, a conversation about all things vision and life. Hi, I'm Heather Patrick, CEO of Prevent Blindness Texas. Welcome to this episode of Eyespiring. A little bit about me. I've been in the healthcare nonprofit world for over twenty years and just celebrated eight years as the CEO of Prevent Blindness Texas.
Heather Patrick:We are a public health agency focused on bringing vision care and education across the state of Texas. Today, my guest is Dr. Carla Mack. I'm super excited to have this conversation. I got to first meet Carla last year.
Heather Patrick:She was one of our panelists at our Women's Health and Vision Symposium. She has an incredible background. She's been in academia. She's an optometrist, and currently she is at Alcon. So let's jump in and pick up our conversation.
Heather Patrick:And Carla, tell us a little bit about you, how you got into this field, and then we'll go from there.
Dr. Carla Mack:Thank you, Heather. What a pleasure to be with you today. It is really great honor to share a little bit about my background story with, you all. So, I'll start from the seventh grade. How about that?
Heather Patrick:Yeah, awesome.
Dr. Carla Mack:I had the opportunity to do a, a talk on what we wanted to be when we grew up. And so at 12 years old, I thought about this and I had known from a long time that I wanted to be something medical. What that was, I don't think I was sure at that point. When I was a small child, I used to say I was going be a nurse, but I always knew it would be something medical and I loved the sciences in school and math and those kind of things. So that was just a path I was going to be on, But in seventh grade, I was already wearing glasses and contact lenses and I was going to choose between two things.
Dr. Carla Mack:My dad had two best friends, an optometrist and a dentist. And so, at that point in time, I thought optometry was very interesting. I thought the eye was super cool, that it was connected to the brain, and I can remember drawing it out on the poster board and all of those things and I never looked back from then on. I've been in eye care literally since I was 17 years old. That has been my jobs and my life's work, since then.
Heather Patrick:That is awesome. It's so interesting how, for some people it's just here, I know what my path is going to be, right? And for others it takes us forever to kind of get there, but that is really cool. All right, so what do you think inspired that passion? Was it the science?
Heather Patrick:Was it because you had exposure? Mean, kids don't even know what an optometrist is, unless you're going to one in seventh grade. What do you think really drove that passion for the science?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah, I think having the opportunity as a child to actually go to those appointments. My parents thought it was very important that you had your teeth checked every six months, you went to the eye doctor every year, and most kids don't have that opportunity, right? Many don't have that opportunity, and even if they do, sometimes the importance isn't known, so they still skip out on those appointments.
Dr. Carla Mack:I was just honestly lucky enough to have a family who believed in that, knew it was important, and so was never scared of either of those individuals or the appointments and actually looked forward to them every year. But I will say I think also going through that stage where you can't see things very well and then you get your first pair of glasses and this is of course back in the day when there were no cool glasses.
Dr. Carla Mack:They were not something you looked forward to wearing in fact I put them in my purse many times and just let them sit in there and I still squinted and couldn't see until I got my contact lenses. Then it was like a whole new world again where you could be yourself without having to wear something you really didn't want to wear or you didn't think looked cool. It was really those kind of things, then every time you get a new prescription how amazing things would look, right?
Dr. Carla Mack:To be able to see the detail in the distance that you were missing and you didn't even realize you were missing. When I think about the value that an optometrist brings, at its core, it is really about helping people see better. While we have all the health aspects and things that we can treat and manage, At its core, every single day with every patient, can help them see the best that they can see.
Heather Patrick:I love that. And I do. I'm right there with you. I failed screening in first grade and I had terrible vision. Even as a kid, I couldn't see the big E. So yes, I had very, very thick glasses. You're right. There were no cool glasses back then.
Dr. Carla Mack:There were none, no.
Heather Patrick:But it's so cool how that has totally changed, right, in this day and age. Not only are there fabulous choices, but just some people wear them just because they are so fashionable. So that's been, I think, fun to watch over the years too, just how the fashion of it has changed. That's been pretty cool. Yes.
Heather Patrick:What continues to inspire you today in your work with eye care professionals around the world?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah, so if we move forward a little bit, I was in academic for fourteen years, the first fourteen years of my career. I did a disease based hospital based residency and I thought I would surely work in an ophthalmology fast paced practice and see eyes that needed help all day long. In the end, what I ended up doing was staying at Ohio State University at the College of Optometry once I was done with my residency and I ended up staying for fourteen years. I actually loved the teaching aspect. I really did love patient care.
Dr. Carla Mack:Other than there was so much learning that went on. So when I think about what keeps me motivated, something new is happening all the time, right? There are new things coming out, new ways to diagnose, new ways to treat, new ways to practice. And so being in that world gave me a lot of opportunity to then think about the more industry or commercial side of things and working for a company. Halfway through my career, I decided to get an executive MBA and learn all about the business of anything, How business is run?
Dr. Carla Mack:What is the acumen behind that? And so that led me into a whole new career path. So at Ohio State, I had a lot of opportunity to meet with many executives from different companies. And again, another great opportunity that was provided by where I worked. So again, just kind of being in the right place at the right time and taking those opportunities when I had them.
Dr. Carla Mack:So I did decide to change my career and move into the industry side of things, which has been for the last now sixteen years, and it's been amazing. Every day is different. I've had different roles, whether it's on the research side of things or on the commercial side of the business, and had the opportunity to work in global roles as you've stated. So there's always something to learn. There's always something new, and it's just an amazing world that we're in.
Heather Patrick:Yeah, that is really, that's pretty cool. And it's kind of unusual. You have a well rounded perspective, right? See it from all different angles. It's interesting now, I'm going to guess you're a learner.
Heather Patrick:You love to learn. That's at least what it sounds like. And usually when people love to learn, they love to teach too. And it seems like kind of there's this thread, this common thread through your career that has really lent itself to that, to being able to really teach or drive teaching or curriculum and really kind of connecting all those dots in this space. Is that true?
Dr. Carla Mack:That is true, Heather. And I would say working in the corporate setting like I'm in now, we always have new people coming in from other roles, other jobs, other things where maybe eyes were not the focus. It could have been a more consumer oriented type of job or role that they had previously, and now they're into something medical, and of course we're on the eye care side of the business. We're always teaching, we're always learning new things, it's exactly correct.
Heather Patrick:You've been described as an innovative and progressive leader. What personal practices help you stay grounded and motivated?
Dr. Carla Mack:Well as we know motivation comes from within right and so you've got to find it it's not just going to happen. Will say like learning like you said definitely underpins all that I do, but I do have three things that I live by on a daily basis and that is that life happens by me and not to me. So that is one thing that I just always think I have an option, I have a say that might be to do nothing, it might be to do something, but it's always that you have a choice in things. It does allow me to not be a victim around circumstances.
Dr. Carla Mack:It's easy to go down that path sometimes, but I would say I definitely am a life happens by me and not to me kind of person. I think that second, getting out of your comfort zone is super important.
Dr. Carla Mack:Try new things, whether they're small, whether they're big. I think it's very important to keep expanding that person that you are. And then third, it's the company that you keep. So I think that the people around you and your inner circle, some people like to call it your own personal board of directors, right? But those people that you keep close to you are again also very important.
Dr. Carla Mack:It doesn't mean they're always going to be the same ones. As you grow, sometimes some of those people don't grow with you and it's okay to let them go a little bit or not spend as much time with them, but those are my three things that I really think keep me grounded and focused on a daily basis, and I try to stay consistent with that philosophy. Yeah.
Heather Patrick:Now, wellness is important to you too, right?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yes.
Heather Patrick:Talk a little bit about that too, how that weaves into your life and keeping you focused.
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah, and I'd say there's this bit about consistency again, I think. When I think about wellness, it is a journey, right? It is something that you need to stay on consistently and that will help you improve. So when I think about exercise to me is key And I have a regimen that I do and I try to stick with that very consistently. Whether you want to or not, I just will go or I will just do it.
Dr. Carla Mack:And it's easy to say, well not today or that kind of thing, but I've come up with a schedule that when I travel I just don't worry about it. So I was just at a conference last week for the week and I did not exercise for the week that I was there, but I come back on a Monday and start right up again. I give myself breaks and those allowances, but I stay very consistent with that. Sleep is something that's also extremely important. I think we're learning a lot about sleep that we didn't know in the past.
Dr. Carla Mack:So going to bed early, getting up at the same time, weekends trying to keep that consistent, and actually just measuring and monitoring my sleep now, which is not something we could do in the past, so I think that's super important. I also think that nutrition is very important, so what we put in our bodies matters. The quality of our food, how nutritiously dense that food is, and again it doesn't mean that I'm 100% on that, but when I think about consistency it's most of the time. So those are things that I think I try to keep very consistent. I also just think a good mental attitude is great, so being grateful for things, just knowing that we have a lot.
Dr. Carla Mack:Bad things happen every day, but how bad are they really? So just trying to keep that grateful attitude as well.
Heather Patrick:Yeah. So, I have a question later on the topic, but I'm really curious what your take on is as we think about brain health in particular. We know so little about the brain still, right? But more and more research is being done and we're learning more. As we continue down that path, do you think vision becomes even more elevated?
Heather Patrick:Or do you think it has to stay separate outside of brain health to continue to kind of be exposed more? What do you think about that?
Dr. Carla Mack:Well, the eye in and of itself is connected to the brain. So it is part of the brain, right? It has got a direct line there. So I think that they're certainly interconnected. When I think about the future and where we could go, I certainly think that the eye, we already know it's a window to disease.
Dr. Carla Mack:We already know that we can see blood vessels and things happening and changing in the eye. If they're happening there, they are most likely happening elsewhere in the body. So those are things we've known for a long time, but I also think the eye could be a biomarker for other things.
Dr. Carla Mack:This is again no area of expertise for me, but I definitely think we could be looking at the eye and parts of the eye from a cellular level and even oxygenation type level to look for diseases and disease states before they may have signs or symptoms. That could be across many different types of things. I don't think it's just eye disease. I think there's plenty of other things we may be able to find in the future.
Heather Patrick:What advice would you share with listeners who want to make a lasting impact in vision and wellness?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yes, I'll take the wellness one first. Think making a lasting impact, I think starts with yourself because, you know, if you can start to get certain things that you deem as important so that you're the best that you can be, then you can do anything else, right? And focus on whatever that priority is, whether it's spreading education about vision or about access to vision care, any of those kind of things. Whatever it is, I think if you're the best person that you can be, you are then more able to help others be the best that they can be or to educate or whatever it may be to be honest.
Heather Patrick:All right, okay. How has the role of the optometrist evolved since your time in academia?
Dr. Carla Mack:So that was sixteen years ago, so it's definitely evolved quite a bit. Know, first I could say there's certainly many new treatment options out today. There are many new diagnostic options out today, And when you think there's a lot of things coming out, you have to pick and choose what you're going to bring into your practice. How is it going to advance your practice? Is it going to attract new patients or is it just going to help you manage or treat different conditions better?
Dr. Carla Mack:But there are a lot of these things coming out now and so there's a lot more decisions that have to be made by a practice owner in terms of what matters and what's going to have to wait for some time. So I think that's one area. I think as we think about patients, patients, and we used to just think of them as a patient, right? This is a person seeking medical or vision advice from you in your care, now I think we need to think about patients as consumers. Consumers want things differently.
Dr. Carla Mack:We live in a completely different world of digital technology, AI, you know, all the things that have happened in the last few years and are happening rapidly, how does that spill over to your practice? Right? How can you help get that patient what they need more efficiently on their time. I think we have to think about our patients as consumers and how we really, they have more power now than maybe in the past. We're consumers as well.
Dr. Carla Mack:As eye doctors, we're also consumers. And so we live in that same world. So I think that's a big difference that we have to think about.
Heather Patrick:And it sets your approach a little bit differently when you do consider them as consumers. You look at things differently, probably more from a business perspective too, than just being a patient. So I think that's great perspective. How can optometrists better advocate for themselves and their patients within the broader healthcare system?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah, that's a loaded question, I think. It's a broad question, but I think at its core, it is about whatever community you're involved and engaged with where you practice, I think it's getting to know the community around you. One, I would start with the doctors that have other specialties and making sure that you're engaging with them and forming relationships with them and sharing what you do and what you're bringing to that community. How do your patients cross over? How might you share and refer patients to each other?
Dr. Carla Mack:But I do think there's education that happens there as well, that you can do certain things and they may tell you they can do certain things that you weren't aware of as well. So I think there's a great opportunity to just connect and communicate and educate from a level of one, just providers. And if we could get everyone to do that, I think that would raise all tides here, I think, from how to be more connected and how to help the community.
Heather Patrick:Yeah. All comes back to relationships and connections, doesn't it? It really does. Yeah. Yep.
Heather Patrick:What opportunities do you see for eye care professionals to lead in areas like public health, wellness, or technology?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah, I think you've got to choose something that you're passionate about or you want to learn about because each of those different areas is pretty different. At some point they may all cross over each other, but I do think at some point you have to find what's a passion area of yours. For me, that might be the wellness area, and if that's the case, I'm going to make sure I talk about that to all of my patients. I would probably be talking to my staff about it as well. I do think there's just a common thread and maybe you want people like you that carry that same kind of thought about whatever it is you're passionate about.
Dr. Carla Mack:I think it's choose an area and maybe go a bit deeper on that area versus trying to be expert on everything. But again, it all comes down to relationships and connections, like you said. Find some other partners within where you reside and the people that you can touch and go that direction.
Heather Patrick:What are the most important skills or mindsets you think emerging optometrists and eye care professionals should develop?
Dr. Carla Mack:So I think in and of itself, you have to have a focus on your patient or your customer. They have to always be first, right? And I might say consumer even, right? So be relentlessly focused on your patients, however you want to look at them, customers, consumers, patients, but focus on them. If you do right by them, you will always be successful, so I would say that.
Dr. Carla Mack:But second, you have to be adaptable. What you learned in school is great, but also know that all the information is going to be changing over time. We're going to learn new things, even maybe how we practice as we think about how do we expand our reach and how do we create access. Well, might get into the digital space that sometimes makes people uncomfortable, but I think we have to embrace areas that can really help reach more patients, that will get more patients engaged in eye care who may be just not engaged in it at all at this point. So I think it's being adaptable to learning, to changing, and just being focused on the patient.
Heather Patrick:That's good, good advice. You've had a fascinating career bridging academia, patient care, and global industry leadership. How do you see those worlds all coming together and improving eye health, which I think is this role for you, that's what you're doing. What are the big things you're driving forward to ultimately improve eye health globally?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah, I think it's looking at things from all directions like you said, right? Having this eye towards academics are focused on something, It is educating those students and taking care of the patients that are real patients that they see, but they have things like they've got to pass their boards and they have to do certain things, so all the education in the world cannot happen just in academic settings.
Dr. Carla Mack:They've really got to focus on what they need to do to get the best doctors out and that may not be being able to do all the other things. They're not necessarily going to have a global focus. There are some schools who do bring in some international students and that kind of thing, but it's not going to be the main focus.
Dr. Carla Mack:For me, when I think about, well, we're producing products that are going to go all over the world, I do want to understand optometry around the world. I do understand how consumers are different in different parts of the world. You know, you wanna understand what those needs are. So, again, it's just a little bit different in the view and the perspective from the role that you have. I think education plays a key role in all of this.
Dr. Carla Mack:There's a learning piece and an education piece, and they go hand in hand no matter what your role is. I think the more experiences that you have allow you to be a bit more open to things and see things in a different way, so being curious is super important as to why we might need to go this direction or that direction versus just shutting things down.
Heather Patrick:Love that. Being curious. A great approach to things. So what shocked you when you got into this role and you started to learn about different things across the world? Was there something that was like your moment?
Heather Patrick:Moment? Wow, they're really doing it differently or the consumer appetite is way different here than in The United States. Did you have that moment?
Dr. Carla Mack:Well, think first from a corporate perspective, I'd have to say the complexity that it is to get a product to market. There is a number of stakeholders and processes, right, when you think about something going from an idea to actually hitting the market. So I think that was probably one of the first things, and it comes over time because when you join, you're seeing things at different parts of its production or as you're thinking about bringing a product out. But once you do this a few times, you start to see how complex it really is. Even though it's complex, it's also quite organized.
Dr. Carla Mack:And that's interesting in and of itself too. From an internal perspective, I think that was one thing that I was intrigued by. From an external perspective, what I loved was learning about optometry around the world. In some places, it simply doesn't exist, and that's okay. In other places, it might exist, but there's certain things they are unable to do through their own licensure that you can do elsewhere.
Dr. Carla Mack:You go to one country, that's just one country, and it's a little bit different in all parts of the world. I think that was another fascinating thing for me. Again, from a corporate perspective, you're thinking we're producing products that we eventually want to have reach everywhere for the most part, So you have to understand all of those nuances and how your product may be marketed or how it gets into the right hands of the professional to get to the consumer or patient. So I think I was wowed by a number of things, Still am probably.
Heather Patrick:That's good, though. Right? That's what makes it interesting.
Dr. Carla Mack:Yea
Heather Patrick:You keep coming in, and it never is the same. How do consumer insights shape the direction of new eye care technologies today? And I would add to not only technologies but products, right? How are consumers' insight on feedback now changing how Alcon or any other group in the industry is responding?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah. I think consumer insights are extremely important, so I can speak for us. We get consumer insights from the beginning to the end of a product life cycle. So thinking about the idea of a product, what is this idea that we have? And we will take that out to consumers.
Dr. Carla Mack:I would say not just consumers, we're also talking to the eye care professionals as well. So while we are getting consumer insights, we are getting eye care professional feedback throughout the entire process. The phased approach of launching a product and the different stages it goes through, but it does start at the ideation stage. While we have consumer insights there, we will also have eye care professional insights. My team is actually responsible for bringing in the eye care professional insights.
Dr. Carla Mack:So we may do market research, which is a group right at Alcon that will go out and get those insights, but they're often partnering with us first as they're thinking about the questions they should ask and how they should phrase the questions to make sure that they're correct. We often use focus groups of our own with eye care professionals that we work with around the world to shape some of these things, so before we go out and test it broader, we're testing it with small groups, and my team is doing that.
Dr. Carla Mack:With each stage of a product, as we look at what claims are going to be most impactful for this product, what are we going to say about that product that will help shift behavior to get that product to the right people? Our team is working on that with eye care professionals. So across this spectrum, and then as we look at the marketing materials, have them review that as well.
Dr. Carla Mack:And again, consumers are also doing the same thing through our market research. We are definitely having them test each one of these things to see what is best. But we want to know if we bring a product out that it is going to be successful, it's going to be adopted. Eye care professionals are going to prescribe that. They know who to prescribe it to and that the consumers actually want it.
Dr. Carla Mack:The patients actually do want that product. So yeah, it's a process that goes from the ideation right out to launch and then of course beyond that as well.
Heather Patrick:Is there a typical product design and launch time or does it really vary across the board product by product?
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah, I would say we probably are gonna give, you can get a new product out in maybe three to five years depending on how different it is. We also when we think about our contact lens products, we always start with a new material. So if we're bringing out a new product, there are iterative products certainly, but generally we're working on a new material with new features for a very specific purpose and sometimes that can take a little bit longer. So generally you could think maybe five years or so, however, much, much longer. We've had some products that have taken us ten years.
Dr. Carla Mack:Also, is some very interesting information that I've heard recently. So in 2011, there was a paper that was published that said it can take seventeen years for a product from an ideation state to actually reach the consumers and have some impact. That was just in medicine in general. Seventeen years is a long time, and that's to really think about having impact. Professor James Wilson out of Aston University is also doing his own work.
Dr. Carla Mack:He's been talking about this a little bit and he said from an eye care or an optometry space it can sometimes be longer. When he thinks about impact, that's reaching forty to sixty percent of the right population. He said he doesn't look at 40, he looks at 60%, which can take even longer. So there's that ideation to just getting it on the market and then there's that adoption period, right? Who's picking it up and when?
Dr. Carla Mack:Where is it available even? Who has access to it? So there's a lot of things that occur right after it launches too, where it's not always in the hands immediately of everyone. So there's many things behind that. So yeah, I think we've got a ways to go when we think about time and ideas of getting the right products to the right patients.
Heather Patrick:Well, it's amazing because when you think about all that, even in the last five years, how much has changed and evolved, right? You start here ten years ago and to put it to market and so many things have changed, which I would think would make it challenging when you really think about just what happens in a decade. And I think especially just because of how much has changed in the last five years just in healthcare alone, would make it somewhat challenging, I would think. Somewhat exciting, but somewhat challenging too. And I had no idea.
Heather Patrick:I don't know why I thought, you know. I don't know what I thought, how long it would take to get a product out, but it never dawned on me, five years. You are doing for five years, you're doing all these pieces and putting it all together and testing messaging and impact. Think that's really important for the audience. There's just so much that goes into the products that are being put out.
Dr. Carla Mack:At any given time, we have about 90 different ideas that are in this pipeline funnel that you can think about. So they're all at different stages and different phases. And what we want to do is make sure that we're being risky enough, that we're trying to think about will this really work and can we push the limits here to make something improved or better or have a better outcome for an individual. But then we're also looking at when do you cut that project, right? When is it just not going to work so that you're not wasting money here and you can put it somewhere else?
Dr. Carla Mack:So again, if we've got 90 plus things always in the hopper, only if you make it out the other side. And so we've got to think about when do you cut a project, how quickly do you do that, and making sure that those processes are really well laid out as well.
Heather Patrick:It's like a giant puzzle, and I'm always trying to put the pieces together. That's pretty amazing. How does Alcon integrate the voice of the eye care professional into strategy decisions? So in the product piece, you're getting their feedback, but are they included, are those insights included strategically as you're looking at different things from an industry perspective?
Dr. Carla Mack:Absolutely. As we think about our five year strategy from a global perspective, where we're going, what are the spaces we want to get into and why, yes absolutely eye care professional insights are played into that. Even more on the ground of a country level or regional level. For example, just take The United States, right? We are also putting together our own strategies on an annual basis, and that's very much built on eye care professional insights.
Heather Patrick:Awesome. What are some of the most promising trends in eye health innovation that you think people should know about?
Dr. Carla Mack:Well, just came back from the American Academy of Optometry last week, so there were so many things. Let's just talk about the digital and AI space first from a trend perspective. Again, think we have to think about those patients as consumers and how we can be more efficient in what we do and how we operate. How can we have better treatment outcomes? How can we ensure that what we're diagnosing is true based on better data?
Dr. Carla Mack:So I think that from a digital and an AI perspective, that's just an area that's going to rapidly, rapidly change the landscape. I think we have to think about it from an access perspective. As I said, we're not going to have doctors everywhere, but we've got more and more people who need care in places that maybe doctors don't want to live. They're far out there or patients or consumers can actually travel in to get to those places where the doctors are. Just even from an access perspective, I think that's very important.
Dr. Carla Mack:I think those can really help us improve care, quality and the quantity of care that we can prescribe or get to patients. In other areas, boy, there's just so many different things from biologics to, you know, nutraceutical kind of things that are coming out that are new and different. We're learning a lot there. Neuromodulators, immunomodulators. I mean, a lot of big fancy words that have a lot of new things around them that will definitely change the way we practice in the future.
Dr. Carla Mack:There's many, many new things coming out, but I think it's very different, right? There's products, there's diagnostic tools, there's treatment options, and then there's the how you do it, right? Maybe with the digital and the AI types of tools.
Heather Patrick:And all goes back to kind of being adaptable and evolving.
Dr. Carla Mack:Yes.
Heather Patrick:Back to learning, always being willing to learn because it's just so amazing the pace, I think, that things are changing and evolving right now too in healthcare is pretty incredible.
Heather Patrick:All right, so one last question. When you think about patient voices, why is it so important that we advocate for ourselves? We talked a little bit about this last year, how important advocating for ourselves is, but you've been in this space a long time, you have all different perspectives. In terms of being empowered as a patient, talk about why it's important to use your voice.
Dr. Carla Mack:Yeah, mean, tend to think at the end of the day, the more you can advocate for yourself the better off you're going to be right and I I realized that not every patient can do that or every person can do that and they need voices for them. But I think to just only trust the individual that you're with, the doctor or whomever or person that's, know, the staff person, you have to ask questions. If something doesn't feel right, you know, you have to actually dig into that a bit. We know our bodies the best of anyone and medicine is always evolving. They're not in your head.
Dr. Carla Mack:They're not feeling what you feel. I like to bring up the story of my mother who was misdiagnosed from Parkinson's disease for five years, She had looked up enough things to know what she had, and she told every doctor that she saw, whether it was a primary care doctor, a different neurologist, a different specialty kind of person, and she was in pretty bad shape. It declined rapidly, and she said, I have Parkinson's. She would tell every single doctor this, and she would be dismissed because it isn't a disease that you can just test for and they can show you have it. They do different type of testing to see if you have it, but it's a little more physical and whatnot.
Dr. Carla Mack:I was with her at the neurologist appointment when that particular neurologist did say, You have Parkinson's. We said, We have been saying this for five years. So she declined very rapidly because she didn't have the appropriate treatment that could keep her body healthy. She became more slow, hard to move, and you lose things during that period, right? You're going lose muscle mass, you're going to lose that ability to be mobile.
Dr. Carla Mack:So she lost a lot in that five years that she was never able to. You're not going to get it back. You can improve a little bit, but you're not going to get that back. But again, had she not been doing that, what if she was never diagnosed? She may have never been diagnosed with the condition that she knew she had.
Dr. Carla Mack:So again, that might be an extreme story for some people, but it's a story of taking care of yourself and advocating for yourself. Even while she was in an assisted living facility, I was eating lunch with her one day and one of the other residents was talking about some nursing changes they were making and they weren't happy about these changes because it would get rid of the continuity of care that they were having and the other resident told me, she said, no, we need you speaking up for us and and my mom just looked at her and said no we have to speak up for us. And I just thought that was great. Now, of course, I should be as well. It should be an additive, but my mom always felt that she had a voice in things.
Dr. Carla Mack:Whether And she was heard or not, she was still gonna use that voice. So I think you know yourself the best, you know your body the best and if something does not feel right, continue to check into it, find someone new, go to someone else. But yeah, I think it's super important.
Heather Patrick:A great way to end the conversation. I love that. And it is. Use our voice. Be heard.
Heather Patrick:Keep digging. Because we do know our body's the best, but I love that. And I do love what she said, right? And we need to advocate for ourselves. But we always need people to help us too.
Dr. Carla Mack:Absolutely.
Heather Patrick:And that's the great thing about, I think, organizations like Alcon and like PBT, because we can join forces and be those voices and help people find their voice to make change. So thank you so much, Carla, for being here, for having the conversation. It's been great to talk to you. I think the work you're doing is amazing.
Heather Patrick:Truly just fascinating and incredible. And Alcon's such a great partner, such a great company. So thank you. Thank you for being here and for your partnership and all that you're doing to move eye care forward, truly. Thank you.
Dr. Carla Mack:Thank you, Heather. It's certainly my pleasure.
Heather Patrick:It was great to have you. And thank you to all our listeners today. You can always reach us on our website, shoot us an email. We are always looking for people to get involved with the PBT family. There are so many different opportunities.
Heather Patrick:Volunteer, be a donor, come to one of our events, get trained and certified as a screener, all different ways to support us and engage with us and be a part of the conversation. So thank you again, Carla. Thank you to all of you listening today. As always, you can follow us on Eyespiring, and we always end with, Tell us what your vision is. Thanks, and have a great day.