There’s an old saying about tight-knit families: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But in the case of Alexander J. “AJ” Leong, OD - Emory Eye Center’s new optometrist – the ‘apple’ landed about 2,400 miles from the ‘tree.’
The son of an optometrist and a dentist, Leong always assumed he would end up working within his mother’s optometry practice in Pleasanton, California. With that in mind, he decided to ‘try the South’ when he chose the Southern College of Optometry in Memphis to begin his training. After that, he embarked on an optometry residency focusing on ocular diseases at the Bruce W Carter VA Medical Center in Miami.
That’s where Leong began to find his own footing in his chosen career.
“I found I really liked working with the veterans,” he said. “They are an older population that needed more care, and they had stories to tell from all over this country and all around the world. My Grandpa was a [World War II] vet but he would never talk about it. So, in a way working with them helped me to connect with him.”
Still, a plan’s a plan. Leong returned to California.
“After residency, I was working part-time at my mother’s practice and part-time at another practice’ and I quickly realized that I missed dealing with the diseases that were a big part of my residency – cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration,” he said. “And I missed working with the veterans. The days were long, but at the end of those days I felt like my work had more meaning. I felt like I was a part of something bigger. My patients [in California] were generally younger, healthier and didn’t need as much care.”
When he joins the Emory Eye Center optometry practice at Grady Hospital’s Camp Creek Campus on March 18, Leong anticipates working with diverse populations, many of them disadvantaged. He is excited about working in a system where his patients will bring him new challenges.
“Grady is an iconic hospital for the city of Atlanta,” he said. “The patients are in need and the doctors are not just collecting a paycheck. There’s more to life than collecting a paycheck.”
-Kathleen E. Moore