Optometrist's Child Fails School Vision Screening, Career Existential Crisis Ensues

Board-certified optometrist Dr. Iris Keratoma was reportedly 'devastated on multiple professional levels' this week after her 8-year-old son, Oliver, failed a routine school vision screening with a visual acuity of 20/80 in both eyes — a finding she called 'personally humiliating and optometrically inexcusable.' 'I have examined over fifteen thousand children,' Dr. Keratoma said, pacing her office. 'I lecture on pediatric myopia progression. I wrote a continuing education course called Catching What Parents Miss. And I missed a minus-two-fifty in my own child. In both eyes. He's been squinting at the television for a year and I thought it was a personality trait.' Oliver, who has apparently been navigating third grade with significantly blurred distance vision, expressed no concern. 'I can see fine,' he told reporters, squinting. 'The board is kind of fuzzy but Mrs. Patterson says everything out loud anyway.' Dr. Keratoma's colleagues have been privately supportive but publicly amused. 'We call it cobbler's-children syndrome,' said fellow optometrist Dr. Macula Vitrea. 'Every optometrist I know has a family member with an overdue exam. Iris just got caught. It could have been any of us.' Dr. Keratoma has since conducted a comprehensive exam on Oliver, revealing bilateral myopia with early peripheral refraction patterns consistent with axial elongation. She has prescribed atropine drops, orthokeratology lenses, and 'a minimum of two hours of outdoor time daily, which I should have been recommending all along instead of letting him play Minecraft in a dark room.' Oliver received his first pair of glasses Tuesday. 'Oh,' he said, looking out the car window. 'So that's what things look like far away. That's really different.' Dr. Keratoma has quietly removed the 'Catching What Parents Miss' course from her seminar schedule.