| Take
Your Daughter To Work: A Priceless Experience
by Pola Rosen,
Ed.D.
Recently, the waiting
room in Dr. Richard J. Mackool’s office was crowded with patients
requiring procedures for eye ailments ranging from cataract removal
and lens implants to lasik and treatment for conjunctivitis. It
was an ordinary day in the life of the well-known eye surgeon
who has operated successfully on thousands of patients and given
them hope for a new life. As each patient was called in turn for
a thorough examination, they were greeted by Dr. Mackool accompanied
by his white-coated, charming 12-year-old daughter Serena.
“This is
the second year I’ve gone with my dad on ‘take your daughter to
work’ and it’s cool”, she exclaimed. “I can see what my dad does
all day, get to meet his patients and see what they think. I also
learn what the instruments are used for,” she added. An exciting
part of the day was observing her father performing lasik surgery
for elimination of eyeglasses. “I didn’t say anything. I was careful
not to bother my dad or his patients.”
Serena is a 6th
grader at the Western Middle School in Connecticut. Among her
favorite subjects are art, English and science. She may become
a physician or a ballet dancer, she avers.
Dr. Mackool praises
the concept of taking children to work highly having taken his
son, now a surgeon, and his older daughter, now an attorney, to
his office when they were younger. “I love sharing my world with
Serena; it lets her get to know the other side of me that she
wouldn’t ordinarily see. I enjoy seeing her enthusiasm as well
as the patients’ responses. Seeing my daughter makes patients
aware that their doctor is humanistic. But, most of all, it enables
us to share each other’s life in a special way that is priceless.”
Education
Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001.
Tel: (212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919.Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express
consent of the publisher. © 2003.
|
