Portland Eye Doctor: Annie Bacon

InJanuary 2015, I joined the SEVA Foundation on an eye care mission trip to Cambodia. This trip impacted me on several levels. As a doctor, I was deeply touched by the opportunity to help the world’s most vulnerable citizens. Cambodia has been through a tremendous amount of trauma and having the opportunity and ability to help restore vision to those victims has been deeply rewarding. As a woman of Thai decent, I have a personal connection to SE Asia. I was reminded of the struggles my grandmother experienced as she lost her vision. When I was young, my grandmother began to lose her vision. Each time I visited her in Thailand, her vision would have deteriorated, and by the time I was in middle school, she was completely blind. Without awareness of the potential for correction, my family assumed this was a natural part of aging. Slowly, my grandmother became more and more home bound and isolated until she required total care. This experience with my grandmother ignited an appreciation for medicine and patient care, ultimately developing into my professional calling. I knew the things that I was learning would help me help someone like my grandmother. I made a commitment to focus my studies where I could provide preventative medicine, early detection and treatment of eye diseases and founded Eye Department upon graduating. Optometry allows me to challenge my nerd-side by solving complex problems while providing eye care to those in need. This is why Eye Department supports, along with many local nonprofits, the SEVA Foundation, which aims to prevent blindness by preserving and restoring sight to the world’s communities. Dr. Annie Bacon is a member of the Oregon Optometric Society and the American Optometric Association.