Job Spotlight: Dr. Griff Gordy, optometrist at Gordy EyeCare

He's the proverbial hometown boy who did good on the gridiron, quarterbacking the Central High School Red Devils football team to its one and only state championship in 1993.

That exhilarating experience helped lay the foundation for Griff Gordy's life as he left Phenix City out of high school and headed for higher learning at Auburn University at Montgomery.

It was there that he first developed an interest in physical therapy but, like a quarterback checking off a play at the line of scrimmage, turned his attention to the profession of optometry.

"You know, God always has a plan for us and I think that's what it was," Gordy said. "When that happened, I wanted to find something to do. I knew I wanted to be in the health profession."

That move would to lead to an early job as an optometric technician at an eye-care center in Montgomery, followed by optometry school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

But Gordy's ultimate goal was to return to his hometown of Phenix City and give back to the community that had, in his eyes, given him so much while growing up.

It was in 2007 that Dr. Gordy did just that, returning to open up Gordy Eyecare in Riverchase Centre on Riverchase Drive in Phenix City. Starting out small and growing, he has been there ever since.

The only transition that has occurred is the relocation of his practice -- and seven-person staff -- from an 1,800-square-foot office building to one measuring 4,500 square feet. That was a little less than a year ago, giving Gordy room to grow as he treats generations of local residents in the coming years.

The Ledger-Enquirer visited with Gordy, 38, recently to discuss his job, the types of people and illnesses he sees and treats, and how he uses those Central High football skills to mold the eye-care team he leads today.

First off, is working as an optometric technician a typical route to becoming an optometrist?

I think so. It definitely helped me in my journey to become an optometrist. As a technician, I learned to check people's vision. I learned how to check people's contact lenses on their eyes. I learned all the testing that you need, color vision, depth perception, all of the pre-testing that's required to get ready to see the optometrist. And I started learning a lot more about the profession by doing all of those things.

Day to day, what do you do?

The optometry field has really grown a lot in the last 20-plus years. A lot of people think of an optometrist and think we do mainly routine eye exams, glasses and contact lenses. That is a big part of our daily practice, but we do a lot of comprehensive medical stuff as well.

I see a lot of diabetic patients, where I'm checking to see that they don't have any signs of diabetic retinopathy, any signs of diabetes affecting their eyes. We treat a lot of patients with eye infections and eye injuries, such as metal in their eyes. We remove a lot of foreign bodies such as metal out of the eye.

We treat people with glaucoma. We treat people with macular degeneration. Now a lot of that treatment of eye disease of glaucoma or macular degeneration or cataracts, we co-manage with an ophthalmologist in case they have to have any type of surgical procedure. I wouldn't be responsible for that. The ophthalmologist would be responsible for that.

Are the medical duties of your profession expected to grow more as baby boomers get older?

I think there's definitely room for growth in optometry. There's always going to be that need for co-management. That is what's so important about developing those relationships with ophthalmologists or primary care physicians ... We want to do as much as we can under the scope of our practice. But who knows what that's going to be 20 years down the road.

Have you seen any major changes since you started in the field?

The technology has definitely advanced. Some of the instrumentation that we use now versus when I was a technician in 1996 has definitely changed. You have instruments now where you can scan the back of peoples' eyes and get a good scan of how their optic nerve looks, if it's healthy, if there's something there that is glaucoma-related. You can scan the macula, the back of the eye, and see if people have any signs of macular degeneration (age-related vision loss) or if they have signs of swelling associated with diabetes. Those are things that 20 or 25 years ago you wouldn't think about being able to do.

How many patients do you see each day?

We normally see about 30 patients a day.

Is that a high load?

I think so. I think it's a good load. On a slow day, we probably see 20. On a busy day, we see 40. But a good average is 30 patients a day. And I'm blessed that I see that many patients a day. When I started here in 2007, I would see two a day. So we've definitely grown. Ideally, that's what I looked for, a practice where I could see 30 to 35 patients a day.

Do some people take their vision for granted and not see an eye doctor enough or at all?

There's no question. Some wait until something's wrong before they get them checked. There's a lot of eye diseases you can have that, by the time you realize something's going on, it can be too late to do anything about it. Number one is glaucoma. It's what we call a silent disease because there's no immediate symptoms that would alert a patient that something's going wrong.

Say if they wait 15 years before they get an eye exam and all of a sudden they notice that their vision is getting blurry, they're at what we call end-stage glaucoma and they're going to go blind.

Diabetics as well. A lot of times diabetics won't get their eyes checked every year like they're supposed to. They'll wait and come in when they start having vision problems. At that point, a lot of times they've got bleeding going on in the back of their eyes, they've got swelling going on, and they'll lose part of their vision because of that.

In those two cases, especially, but even in general, it's extremely important that people come in and get their eyes checked on a routine basis so those things can be identified and detected before any vision loss occurs.

At what age do you recommend parents get their kids' eyes checked? It seems you see more children with glasses these days.

I recommend 1 year old. A lot of times parents will ask how do you check them at 1 year old. They think their kids can't communicate, so how can we check their vision. But there's a lot of testing that we can do with just lights.

The important thing about vision is that light gets to the back of your eye. We can detect whether or not the light is getting back there. We can detect if there is significant prescription (needed) there. We can detect if one eye is weaker than the other eye, which is commonly known as a lazy eye.

Those are things that if they're not detected by a certain age, then kids will end up not developing the vision that they're supposed to because of that. That's why we recommend -- at an extremely early age -- that kids get their eyes checked so that if there is any problems with their eyes, it's detected as early as possible. That's when whatever the problem is can be corrected or treated to a point where their vision can be stimulated and their vision can develop as good as it possibly can.

That's because you only have a small window. Usually, somewhere around the age of 7 is when kids' visual development is going to stop.

What about insurance issues. Is that a problem for folks?

A lot of people don't understand that we take just about every insurance there is around this region ... Most people don't have a problem with that because they usually have either medical or vision insurance.

And sometimes medical insurance will cover a visit. That's one thing patients don't understand sometimes. Now, they have to have a medical diagnosis, like if they have dryness of their eyes or if they're having problems with irritation of their eyes, or glaucoma or diabetes. All of those are medical diagnoses, where they can be seen because it's for a medical reason.

That's one thing I try to tell people when I'm educating patients or if I'm out talking at a community center or something like that. I want them to understand that.

As you grow your practice, are multiple locations in your future?

As of right now, this is what I like. I want to have just one location. I have the space to where if I decided to bring in another doctor, have like an associate or a partner, I'm capable of doing that. I guess down the road that could always be a possibility of having like a satellite office. But this is my hometown. This is where I want to be. My goal is to continue to grow here.

You quarterbacked a championship team. Do you bring any of that experience with the team to your optometry business? The discipline? The team atmosphere?

No question. I'm amazed at the things I learned in high school and in college from an athletic standpoint that have grounded me as an adult -- the commitment, the discipline and, most importantly, the teamwork.

Here at Gordy EyeCare, I wouldn't be successful if my staff wasn't doing the things that they're supposed to do. That's what I try to impress upon them is that every single person is extremely important in the role that they play for the practice. If everybody's not doing their job, it can hinder everyone.

At the same time, I want them to know that everyone's role is important, that no one person's role is more important than another person's. Everyone is equally important. And that's something you learn in sports. You learn that team concept.

I think it's something we're losing in today's sports. If you watch it, there's so much individualism in what we see. But you see the effects of it. It's devastating.

It's the same thing in a business. If you have individuals who are more concerned about themselves and not the practice as a whole or what they can do to help others, then I think we're losing sight of what our goal is.

You're a Phenix City optometrist. But do you get some folks crossing the river to use your services?

Definitely I have, and I think the majority of the ones I've seen have come from word of mouth, which I've found out is by far the best advertising you can have. If you treat patients right and do the right things for them and you take care of them, they're going to tell other people about you. I have seen that as the years have gone by.

I'm seeing more people from Columbus coming over, probably because they work with somebody who has seen me before or they've asked somebody who they would recommend. And Facebook's a great tool now, and social media, because people ask about us on there. Whether it's through the Fort Benning area guide or Muscogee County Mom's, or some of those websites that we try to do advertising with, they'll find out that we take their insurance and they'll come across the river.

What's the biggest challenge you face in your job?

The biggest challenge I would say is probably managing my staff, just because it's a day-to-day thing and everyone has different personalities, everyone has different ages. You have a variety of people that you're trying manage. But the most important thing is trying to keep them focused on customer service. They know that's my main goal, and it's theirs as well.

You're running a business on top of being an eye professional?

Right. And that's the hardest thing. When you're in school, you're taught all of the things optometry-related. But they don't tell you anything about running a business. Those are the things you learn as you go. And the bigger my practice gets, the bigger my staff gets, and it makes it more difficult. When you have one or two employees versus seven or eight employees, there's a big difference there.

Are you still learning?

Oh, definitely, every single day. And I try to talk to my employees to understand what they feel, what their concerns are, what some of their suggestions are, because sometimes they may have better suggestions about the way that we do things than I do.

That's one of the things I've seen as the staff has gotten bigger is the need to get everyone's input and making sure I let them know that I want their input and I want their suggestions. That's one thing we're working at as a staff, is working together as a team and offering insight into ways we can make Gordy EyeCare a better place.

What's the most rewarding thing you find about your job?

The patients. Just taking care of our patients.

And these are folks you typically only see once a year?

Right, unless you see them in the community, which a lot of them we do. (laughs) We do see them at other places.

But I think that's the most rewarding thing is just being able to take care of the people in my community. It's been my dream ever since I knew that I was going to be an optometrist -- I wanted to come back home.

This place means so much to me because so many people here took care of me when I was growing up. They helped provide for me and supported me in my career path, and that's what I want to do. I want to take care of the people that took care of me. I want to take care of their kids, their grandkids.

So I guess that's the most rewarding thing to me is just to see the patients that we deal with everyday, and to understand the opportunity that God's given me to be able to do that.

Do you see some of your former teammates and others you played with and grew up with?

Definitely. Former teammates, former classmates, former teachers, former coaches. Some of my former teammates' and classmates' kids, I see them now.

It's interesting, and it was a neat part of coming back home, being able to reconnect with people that I hadn't seen in a while. I was gone for, I think, 13 years. I left high school, went to college, and through all of my schooling, I was gone 13 years before I came back home.

What does the future hold for you five or 10 years out? Do you think you'll be right here in your hometown?

I have no plans. I tell people all the time that God's plans are bigger than mine, so I don't know, I can't say for certain. But my plans are to be here, to be in this community.

I want to invest in this community and be a part of the growth. As my kids grow, I'd love for them to grow up here. Phenix city means a lot to me.

So, yeah, five or 10 years from now, I still envision myself here in this office. The office space is big enough that I don't think we'll outgrow it in the next five years. I would envision that if we stay busy enough, I would bring someone in as a partner and have two doctors here instead of just one.

What about the career lifespan of an optometrist, do they typically go to age 60 or 65?

I would love to work until I'm 60 or so. And I've got three boys, so at that point maybe one of them will want to take over. I don't know what they may want to choose, but it could be an opportunity for one of them.

Do you hope one of them is the quarterback on a state championship team? That's right. (laughs) That would be neat.

Bio

Name: Dr. Griff Gordy

Age: 38

Hometown: Phenix City

Current residence: Phenix City

Education: 1994 graduate of Central High School in Phenix City; earned bachelor’s degree in psychology from Auburn University-Montgomery in 1999; graduated from University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Optometry in 2003

Previous jobs: Worked with Primary EyeCare Associates from 2003 to 2007; with Dr. Charles Goodman and Associates from 2005 to 2007; and with West Georgia Eye Care from 2007 to 2008

Family: Married to Jennifer Rae Gordy since April 19, 2008, and they have three sons — Evan, 5, and 1-year-old twins, Lucas and Noah

Leisure time: Enjoys spending time with his family, including spending time at the beach; attends Summerville Baptist Church where he teaches the College and Career Sunday School Class; serves on the Fellowship of Christian Athletes East Alabama Board; serves on the Phenix City Coach Pitch Board; volunteers as a sideline reporter for the Red Devil Radio Network

Of note: He will be the toast of the town at a Roast Dinner Fundraiser for the Phenix City Girls Club (6 p.m. Thursday at Central High School cafeteria; tickets available at Gordy EyeCare for $25 each); he recently spent eight days on a mission trip in San Pedro Las Huertas, Sacatepequez, Guatemala, with he and a colleague providing eye care for approximately 300 children and adults in the village and approximately 100 pairs of eyeglasses to those in need; he plays with Team Redemption, a softball team that is focused on spreading the gospel through the talents and opportunities God has given everyone (“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” — Ephesians 1:7)

This story was originally published February 14, 2015 at 3:23 PM with the headline "Job Spotlight: Dr. Griff Gordy, optometrist at Gordy EyeCare."