The Circle of Life and the Value of Human Connection

About the Author

By Dr. Paul Gooch

The Circle of Life and the Value of Human

Dr. Paul Gooch grew up in Mona, Utah. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and the University of Missouri–St Louis, College of Optometry. He started SouthWest Vision in January of 1998 and has grown his practice to include Dr. Ryan Robison as partner in 2006 and Dr. Eric Drake in 2013. He is a member of the American Optometric Association and the Utah Optometric Association (UOA). He served Utah Optometry as a UOA Trustee for eight years. He is currently an adjunct professor at Southern California College of Optometry. Dr. Gooch is twice past president of the Rotary Club of Dixie Sunrise and past president of the SouthWest Chapter of the Back Country Horsemen. Dr. Gooch has been the recipient of the Young Optometrist of the Year Award and the TLC Humanitarian Award. His loves include raising a family, training mules, dabbling in politics, and flying powered parachutes.

The human mind is an amazing thing. The ebbs and flows of our humanity are deeply influenced by the way we Connection each other over the years, the sensation I feel when they sit in my exam chair is “Really? It has been a whole year since you were here? It feels like yesterday!” remember things. One of the most And then I get to learn their tragedies and fascinating elements of human memory triumphs while we are catching up during the exam is“situational memory,” which is the effect of process. From birth to death and everything in between, life environmental context on how we recall things. This is on full panoramic display. Situational memory. What a gift we effect is why it is easier to remember acquaintances in the places that possess—one among the many… we know them rather than when we run into them randomly. Because I love word play, I often tell people that I bend light in an

One of the greatest pleasures of my job as an optometrist is that optometric sweat-shop for a living. But it is so much more than that. I get to witness the circle of life unfold in front of me, in my exam As I flip “better one or two” dials and operate marvelous technological chair, one patient at a time, as if I am watching a movie of a mighty machinery to understand the health of your vision, it really is just tree growing in time-lapse style. Because we get to see our patients on the circle of life on display. It is the value of human connection. It is some regular cycle, usually yearly, we get to experience this time-lapse friendship. It is the breathtaking vista of interesting people who live effect in what feels like real time. As my patients and I get to know interesting lives, seen one patient and one year at a time.