Optometrist Dr. Abby Jakob loves making a difference in patients’ lives

 

By David Goldberg

On the shores of Lake Erie, in the picturesque town of Kingsville, Ont., there’s an optometry clinic standing between other businesses on Main Street.

It’s a brick building painted all white and in front of the window, there’s a flower box filled with plastic flamingos waiting to welcome you inside.

That’s where you’ll find the owner of EYES, Dr. Abby Jakob, ready to help whoever walks through the door.

From a young age, Jakob knew she wanted to be an eye care professional.

“My eye doctor growing up inspired me to go into optometry because he was the only adult I knew who enjoyed his career and it was so obvious he loved what he did,” she said.

Jakob has many fond memories of those annual checkups where she and her ultra-competitive brother would see who could read the eye chart more precisely.

After graduating from optometry school in Chicago, Jakob returned to practice in Canada and joined the Ontario Association of Optometrists.

Finally, she could start helping people like she always wanted to.

“I discover what the issue is and help them understand it. Together we come up with a decision or treatment plan and when they come back to me with improvement, that always makes my day. When patients believe that what I’m doing is helping and trust that I have their best interest at heart, it feels very rewarding,” she said.

As her practice continues to grow and her clinic racks up more five-star ratings on Google, Dr. Jakob has developed a keen interest in treating patients with dry eye. She suffers from the condition herself and so she takes great pride in helping others.

“I recently implemented Lipiflow into my office. We are now performing meibography on every patient, as well as performing a dry eye screening questionnaire. We’ve been looking for and catching a lot more dry eye and when the patients understand their symptoms and have that lightbulb moment, it makes all the long-winded explanations about dry eye and meibomian gland disease worth it.”

When it comes to her philosophy about helping patients, Jakob always goes back to her favourite quote: 

“Patients don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”