It wasn’t the glass cases that housed delicate Cartier frames in Dr. Diana Monea’s office that won her the inaugural ECP of the Year award from Transitions Optical this spring. Nor was it her office’s location in Calgary’s trendy Kensington neighbourhood that made her worthy of accolades.
One can, perhaps, gain the greatest insight into why she’s worth acknowledging by taking a look at her e-mail inbox. It’s crammed with more than 13,000 messages – mostly from clients with eyecare concerns. She takes the time to answer each of them personally.
The snapshots adorning the storefront walls show Dr. Monea holding babies just after their first eye tests, a clear indication of the priority she gives to pediatric care.
Office manager Diana McMillan holds down the fort in the Kensington practice, where top-of-the-line designer frames are made accessible to average Canadians, while the popular optometrist is busy keeping eye appointments at her other two practices in South Calgary and Regina. McMillan has been working with Dr. Monea for five years and says her years of working in the industry have been topped by her time overseeing Monea’s office and clients.
“I managed large clinics in the city before I came to work for her here in Kensington, and before I came I was wondering if it was going to be a good fit,” she explains. “Once I did, I realized that working with Dr. Monea was a fresh breath of air – she is extremely progressive, both in fashion and optical, and there is such a marriage between the two. She is on the cutting edge in both of them.”
McMillan noted Dr. Monea’s uniqueness in being accessible to her patients 24 hours a day via email.
“She’ll respond at 2 a.m.,” McMillan says. “Sometimes I’ll get calls from patients wondering if she sleeps.”
And as a result, Dr. Monea complains she doesn’t have enough hours in the day.
“The further away we get from human contact, thanks in part to the Internet, the more humans long for it,” she says on her one-to-one customer-care philosophy. “Patients aren’t patients – they’re family. They really are.”
That keen awareness of a client’s needs, coupled with outstanding sales in Transitions lenses (53 per cent of sales at her three practices include Transitions), earned her the award.
The founder of Eye Health Centre Optometrists is clearly dedicated to her vocation, making time for charity work, mentoring students and doing professional development. The Saskatchewan born optometrist counts a number of industry firsts on her resume, including being the first optometrist in North America to profile case studies in optometry, beginning in April of 2000. All digital pictures, corneal topography and field analysis illustrated were drawn from her office’s database of more than 110,000 eye exams she has personally performed so far in her career. Along with state-of-the-art technology, the digital files are used when working in collaboration with other specialists to enhance the service provided to each patient.
Dr. Monea has come a long way from the Rockglen, Saskatchewan farm on which she was raised. Over her 31-year career, she has cultivated a special interest in children’s needs. In particular, she helped spearhead the Eye See I Learn program through Essilor, which aimed to educate parents about the need for early eye health exams. One of the main goals was to advocate for government-subsidized eye health exams and a free pair of glasses for kindergarten students in Alberta.
“Vision is the most important sense we have,” Dr. Monea says. “Eighty percent of learning is done through vision. No child in this day and age should be unable to achieve full development.”
Part of Dr. Monea’s strategy is to show clients at a young age that wearing glasses isn’t the burden it was once perceived to be. That’s where her self-admitted “passion for fashion” comes into play. The doctor estimates that she owns close to 500 pairs of designer frames, and is adamant that her customers should take the opportunity to wear glasses in order to look their best while attaining perfect vision.
“Spectacles are a piece of jewellery on your face that serves a purpose,” she says. “It’s so much fun to make a statement.”
Despite her busy work days, she makes sure to wake up early to research any new trends in the industry, in order to stay up to date and informed for her clients. She attends local fashion shows and makes the annual Silmo and Vision Expo East international trade shows a priority.
As a result, she has been rewarded by a dedicated and growing patient base.
“I have now gone into the fifth generation of some families I treat,” Dr. Monea says.
Although the Transitions award was clearly hard earned, Dr. Monea wastes no time in doling out credit to her dedicated team at her Eye Health Centres.
“It was totally unexpected – it was a really humbling experience,” she says. “This is not an ‘I’ award, it’s a ‘we’ award.”
Credit noted.
The above article is a reprint from Optical Prism magazine.
Transitions Optical, Inc. has named Diana Monea, O.D., Eye Health Centre, Calgary, Alberta, the first-ever “Eyecare Professional (ECP) of the Year” as part of the new Healthy Sight Awards program.
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Second Look
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In 2003 the Alberta Association of Optometrists partnered with Elk Island Public Schools, the Ministry of Children’s Services, the Capital Health Authority, and the East Central Health Authority to launch an exciting pilot project called “Eye See…Eye Learn ®”. The project was designed to ensure eye health and/or vision problems weren’t a factor in preventing children from reaching their full learning potential. Parents of ECS (Kindergarten) students were encouraged to obtain comprehensive eye health and vision examinations for their children through local optometrists or ophthalmologists.