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Lt. Cmdr. Margaret Read, director of clinical support services at Naval Health Clinic Quantico, was named as the Navy’s optometrist of the year Feb. 2013. In addition to her administrative duties, Read still finds some time to see patients as an eye doctor.

Photo by Mike DiCicco

Quantico clinic administrator named Navy optometrist of the year

28 Feb 2013 | Mike DiCicco Marine Corps Base Quantico

On Tuesday, the Armed Forces Optometric Society officially named Naval Health Clinic Quantico’s director of clinical support services this year’s Navy optometrist of the year. Lt. Cmdr. Margaret Read was recognized for her varied accomplishments, from Quantico administration to Department of Defense-wide doctrine, to her work in the field in Kuwait and Iceland.

“This is not just a one-time, one-year award,” said Cmdr. David Byman of Branch Health Clinic Naval Station Norfolk, who nominated Read for the honor. “I think it’s more of a lifetime, career award.”

Though Byman was never stationed with Read, he said her name, reputation and achievements are well-known throughout the military medical community.

Last year, Read brought to fruition a four-year effort that she led to have vision readiness added to joint military doctrine. Thanks to her work, the Health Service Support joint publication for all military services is now the first joint military publication to contain a section on vision readiness.

“We didn’t have that overarching policy we could point to and say, ‘This is why we do what we do,’” Read said. “Whenever you have an overarching instruction, it gives a common basis for setting up structures within each of the services.”

She said her work at the U.S. Army Public Health Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., between 2008 and 2012, especially as program manager of the Tri-Service Vision Conservation and Readiness program, positioned her to work with the different services to get the new doctrine added.

In his nomination, Byman also cited Read’s work since her arrival in May at Quantico, where, “In just a few short months, her leadership has resulted in four departments achieving over half a million dollars in cost savings and recaptured clinic workload.”

As director of clinical support services, Read oversees the lab, pharmacy, physical therapy and radiology departments. But she credited recent cost savings and increased efficiency to renovations in the pharmacy, new equipment in the lab and a highly productive physical therapy department.

“That’s me having extraordinarily good department heads who know their jobs and do them well and make me look good,” Read said.

Most of her work now is in an administrative capacity, but she still sees patients as an optometrist, usually with the two optometry students who are stationed here from Indiana University, where she is an adjunct faculty member.

“I love being an eye doctor, and I still get to be an eye doctor because I’m working with students,” she said.

During her time at the Army Public Health Command, Read was influential in the selection of the new standard-issue eyeglass frames. Before that, she worked at a naval hospital in Keflavik, Iceland, where she was the optometrist, executive committee of the medical staff chair and disaster preparedness officer, and then served as director of the Arlington Annex of the DiLorenzo Tricare Clinic, among other duty posts. She also deployed to the Expeditionary Medical Facility Kuwait for seven months.

Read said she has enjoyed the variety of work that the Navy has afforded her. “I don’t have to decide what I want to do when I grow up because there are so many opportunities to do different things and learn and grow in the military,” she said.

Byman said he didn’t learn of many of Read’s contributions until after he started researching her nomination. “She did so many things that she did not trumpet, things she just did day in and day out that had a significant impact on the military,” he said.

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com


Marine Corps Base Quantico