As a young man, optometrist A. Roy Roberts ’78 knew he wanted to pursue a career in a medical specialty, but thought he’d most likely add a DDS to his name.
“My mother had always wanted me to be a dentist,” he says. But a family friend advised him to take a look at optometry.
Roberts took the advice to heart. Upon fulfilling his obligation to the Air Force, which he joined directly after high school, he enrolled at WSU, earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and went on to the Southern College of Optometry in Memphis, Tenn.
After graduating in 1983, he established a practice in Wichita, where he works to stay on the cutting edge of optometry.
Assisting him in that aim, he says, is membership in the Heart of America Contact Lens Society. The society’s purpose, he explains, “is providing the most current, comprehensive professional continuing education available on all phases of contact lenses, ocular disease and surgery, and practice management techniques.”
In February, he was elected to a second term on its board of directors as registration director.
Roberts attributes his optometric success at least partially to his time at WSU: “There were 150 students in my class at SCO. They were all bright, competitive individuals, many having graduated from prestigious and selective universities. I was as well-prepared for the rigors of professional school as any of my classmates. My experience at WSU prepared me well for my future.”
