Planning for the future of optometric care
Since making the move from the American Midwest to Canada, Timothy McMahon has been busy in his new role at Waterloo’s School of Optometry.
As associate director of clinical affairs and optometrist-in-chief, McMahon oversees the entire clinical operation, which sees more than 25,000 patients on-site and 5,000 patients in the community each year.
McMahon is working on plans for a clinic renovation, a project he has deemed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
We’re likely not going to do another clinic redesign for 40 or 50 years,” he says. “We have to consider what the practice of optometry is going to look like 20 or 30 years from now and build an environment that’s adaptable to the future.
Currently, McMahon is meeting with staff, faculty, and industry to determine patient and student needs for the rebuild.
We have some initial concepts of what the renovation could look like and that gets people talking,” he says.
McMahon also wants to ramp up efforts at the school’s satellite clinic at the Downtown Kitchener Health Sciences Campus.
We have developed a new and unique relationship with medicine that we hope to develop into a different culture and direction for healthcare delivery,” he says.
Nearly a year into the job, McMahon has been impressed with what the School of Optometry has to offer.
It is in a unique environment as it is the only English-speaking optometry school in Canada,” he says. “This is a great place to collaborate with colleagues and our students are incredibly bright.
