Rachel Newland was not sure of her career path while she was attending Parsons High School.
When she graduated PHS in 2012, she headed for the University of Kansas and pursued a major in biology with a minor in business, but she remained uncertain concerning her career choice.
“I knew I wanted to pursue something in the medical field, but I wasn’t completely positive what I wanted to do. It was between medical school, dentistry or optometry,” she said.
A degree in biology paved the way towards any one of those choices. Growing up, she worked some in her dad’s optometry clinic, Eye Care Associates, but she was not completely convinced it is what she wanted to do.
“Ultimately I decided on optometry,” Newland said, of following in her father’s footsteps. She was a little nervous about her decision, given the investment of four more years of education, but she committed to it. “I knew I would like it, but I was really surprised what a good fit it’s been for me.”
Optometry schools are spread out all over the country, and Newland decided to attend one in Memphis, Tennessee because she was impressed with the food, the culture and the people she met when she toured the school there. It was a good fit for her and she made a lot of life-long friends there.
She attended four years followed by an optional one-year residency at the V.A. Medical Center in Kansas City, completing her education in 2021. She them worked for two years at a big medical practice in Kansas City.
She said it was a good learning experience, as it was a high-volume practice, allowing her to see a lot of medical issues and diseases of the eyes in a fairly short period of time.
In June, she moved to Denver, but traded the fast-paced city job for one working in the smaller neighboring town of Golden, Colorado.
She very much enjoys where she is at now as it is much more patient focused. Working in a smaller community, she feels she knows her patients a lot more.
“People will say, ‘Don’t you get bored doing the same thing every day?’ But, I don’t think I do the same thing every day. Every day is different because each patient is different, so it makes it really fun,” she said. “And I just really like the work/life balance of optometry. I think it’s very interesting. You work with people every day. It’s a lot of good problem solving, but it’s never life or death. I don’t take the job home with me as much. It’s been really rewarding without being as stressful as some of the other medical professions I could have gotten into, so I really enjoy it.”
Living where she can enjoy many outdoor activities is wonderful, too, she said, and she has met a lot of wonderful people there.
Thinking back to her days at Parsons High School, Newland said she feels the fact that we have honors science classes, and the whole honors program, was a big thing for her and one thing she appreciated most about high school.
To high school students who are presently trying to discover what path they want to take, Newland suggested, “Don’t rule anything out. If you get a chance, shadow a profession, because I think shadowing is definitely what helped me, because you just don’t have any idea of what an actual day-to-day looks like until you spend a day watching someone do their job.”