EyeCon 2022: Diversity, equity, and inclusion in your optometry practice

Adam Ramsey, OD, CEO of Socialite Vision, based in Pam Beach Gardens, Florida; founder of Health Focus South Florida; and co-founder of Black EyeCare Perspective, caught up with Optometry Times' Emily Kaiser to discuss key takeaways from his presentation titled, "Diversity, equity, and inclusion in your optometry practice," which he co-presented with Ruth Shoge, OD, MOH, FAAO, during EyeCon 2022 held in Marco Island, Flordida.

This transcript has been edited for clarity:

Kaiser:

Hello, I'm Emily Kaiser with Optometry Times and I'm sitting down with Dr. Adam Ramsey to discuss his presentation on diversity, equity and inclusion in your optometry practice at EyeCon 2022 in Marco Island, Florida. Welcome Dr. Ramsey, thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

Ramsey:

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Kaiser:

Can you give us a brief overview of your presentation?

Ramsey:

Well, I'm excited to go down to Marco Island, I'll be presenting a talk with one of my great colleagues Dr. Ruth Shogem so we're excited to come together [for] "Diversity, equity, and inclusion and practice."

We want this talk to be centered around giving some actionable items, and some ways that we can see how diversity can work and improve your practice, how understanding and seeing ways in which diversity may be hindering, or how somebody else may view equity and inclusion. Because sometimes you may have a practice or an office structure that's diverse, but there's no equity or inclusion. And sometimes we miss that mark on the equity and inclusion aspect of the practice.

So my goal is to just make it more fun and engaging. And some ways in which you can take it to practice the next day, when you leave the conference, you go back like, "Okay, I can actually do that, I get it!" So I'm really excited to talk with the docs.

Kaiser:

Yeah, so you already kind of hinted at it. But how should clinicians respond to this information?

Ramsey:

I want it to be a positive response. I want them to be able to see that we're not talking at them or talking with them. And we're trying to give you something that is fun and engaging, and just a different way of seeing something.

Because when it's not your norm, or it's not something you think about every day, you may not view it the same way. But if I can show you some simple things be like, "Hey, this is what you're doing right now. But if you just tweak it to this, it will be received much better or you or however you're doing it," there can be ways to do it more effectively and efficiently.

Kaiser:

Yeah, that sounds amazing. And what do you hope that optometrists take away from your talk?

Ramsey:

I want another take away that diversity is fun. And sometimes it's just the right thing to do. And equity and inclusion, it's just a different way and a mindset of viewing and engaging a topic and a concept. But at the end of the day, it's the right thing to do. And sometimes you just got to do what the right thing to do is, and figure out a way to make it happen and make it work in your practice.

Instead of having the mindset of, "It can't be done. I'm in Arkansas, I'm in Tennessee, you don't know my practice. You don't know my patient base. You don't know where I hire, you don't..." I hear you. I know. I struggle. I have it. But at the end of the day, it's something that I'm trying and working towards.

And nobody's asking anybody to be perfect or nobody's asking for any practice to be the stellar star practice on day one. It's are you going to be 1% better tomorrow than you were today? And if you can do that, then by next year, you'd be good to go.