Solo Optometrist Serves Underserved with Heart

By Glenn Manigault

For many elderly in Connecticut who suffer from low vision, the options can seem to fade like their eyesight. But in an old Victorian on Bridgeport's west side, Dr. Kimberly Stevens, optometrist, is willing to help patients who other practitioners find too exhausting.

Working with mostly older people is also difficult because they are less accepting of newer technology and a lot of them can’t afford all the options that practitioners suggest, Dr. Stevens says. “I try to help everybody here.”

For people who have lost much of their vision due to glaucoma and macular degeneration, standard glasses do not work adequately. To help, optometrists provide magnifiers, telescopes and computer-based devices. None of these aids can alone restore vision but they help patients function.

“This is an old fashion office,” Dr. Stevens explains. “I am a little old-fashioned myself and I am the only person here. So that’s a little unusual about the practice. If you think about any of your doctors that you go to, imagine it being only your doctor and that’s it -- No secretary, no billing apartment, just your doctor who greets you and does your exam. That’s how it works here, I am by myself,” she says.

“When you call you get me. When you come in, you see me. You're not shuffled off to have some technician do three quarters of the exam and have the doctor come in for five minutes and you're done,” she adds.

Dr. Stevens, born and raised in Bridgeport, talks about her childhood with her father who was a medical doctor. As a small girl she remembers going on house calls with him. Dr. Stevens says this was important to how she works now because back then when she saw people who were sick, she knew they couldn’t get to the doctor to get help. Her personal experiences shaped who she is and how she works with her patients, she says, and she is pleased with the results she has achieved with patients.

Dr. Stevens has always been in solo private practice, which she started from scratch. She didn’t purchase her practice from a retiring doctor or begin her career in group practice. In 1983 after receiving a bachelor’s degree from John Hopkins University, Dr. Stevens took a front desk job at a nonprofit eye clinic downtown run by volunteer doctors providing services to patients without insurance who couldn’t otherwise afford treatment This experience inspired her to attend the State University of New York College of Optometry.

Now, 37 years in practice and 25 in her present location, Dr. Stevens is a resource for local practitioners making referrals and a consultant for the State of Connecticut's Services for the Blind. She is also a National Board of Optometry examiner.

“I am most proud of the fact that I opened the doors, and I am still here. I wasn’t sure if that was going to happen. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to survive but, I did,” Dr. Stevens says.

Glenn Manigault is a student at the University of Bridgeport.