BANDERA EYE CARE MOVES TO MAIN STREET

Bandera Eye Care, the practice of Dr. Thomas Goldstein, has moved onto a Main Street location at 1136 Main Street in Bandera.

The Goldsteins opened a practice in August 2020 in the strip center after visiting and seeing the opportunity to open a practice in Bandera.

“We recognized the need in the community,” remarked Jennifer Goldstein.

Dr. Goldstein currently has a practice in Ingram Park, but when COVID slowed business down, he and his wife visited Bandera and found opportunity calling.

Goldstein was considering retiring when he saw Bandera and anticipated selling his Ingram Park practice and settling in Bandera for retirement.

By September 2021, the family had moved to Bandera and enrolled their twelve-year-old daughter in Bandera Middle School.

Both Jennifer and Thomas Goldstein agree that the town has embraced them wholeheartedly.

“We felt really comfortable and liked it here,” Jennifer remarked.

Their Bandera practice had grown so quickly that they had to expand into a larger facility from their original office in the strip center.

When the building at 1136 Main came up for sale, they saw the possibilities for a Main Street office. Because of the practice’s growth the Goldstein’s hope to expand into the office space beside them in their current location and create a diagnostic room and more exam rooms for the practice.

Goldstein is proud of his office’s diagnostic capabilities. For example, the Optomat, an ultra-widefield retinal imaging device, gives a window into someone’s health, not just their vision.

He is justifiably proud of what he calls “his diagnostic toys.” Dr. Goldstein is an avid reader and keeps ahead of the curve when it comes to professional development.

Jennifer Goldstein remarked that she has seen many people in Bandera come in for their first eye checkup.

“We find it very rewarding when you have a patient that can’t see properly come in and get glasses for the first time. Having someone who can’t see properly, have an eye exam, get glasses and be overwhelmed almost to the point of tears that they can actually see. This is especially true with kids who didn’t realize that they couldn’t see. Wow, it’s a whole new world. It is heartwarming to see that,” said Jennifer Goldstein.

The Goldstein’s look forward to integrating into the community by getting involved and meeting people. The Goldstein’s sponsored a table at Bandera Middle School’s Winterfest.They hope to develop relationships with all the school nurses and have already been working closely with Nurse Toni Serene at Bandera Middle School.

Dr. Goldstein is adamant that parents get an eye exam for their children before they start school. Most parents wait until there is an obvious problem for an eye exam, he stated and by then the child is already behind in school.

“When we do an eye exam, the eye is the only place you can examine blood vessels without injecting dye or cutting tissue open. By looking at the blood vessels we can tell so much about what is going on systemically in the body, especially for diabetics and hypertension patients. Part of the overall health care that a person needs, is an annual eye exam to determine the health of their eyes as well as the quality of their vision” states Dr. Goldstein.

An eye exam is more than just “how is your vision?' It is a generalized additional test of your overall health,” reiterated Goldstein.

Being from a medical family, Dr. Goldstein began his career as a pharmacist but was drawn to optometry.

At 15 years old, he expressed an interest in optometry and went to the local optometrist and shadowed him. When they were in the optometrist’s office, he advised Goldstein to look into a different profession.

“So I said ‘ok’ and went to pharmacy school. When I was finishing up pharmacy school, they opened up an optometry school at Northeastern. I applied and got in.”

“While lecturing in the Optometry School for therapeutics, I saw that same optometrist and he was astounded I got in. I learned a big lesson that day. Never take advice from someone who doesn’t know you.”

Goldstein asserts that young people should never let someone tell you that you can’t do something because of the way you dress or the way you look.

“Don’t let them stereotype you and drive you away from something you have a passion for.”

“We really want everybody to know how grateful we are to be welcomed into the community; and to grow and expand our business into this bigger space where we can help more people. It is all due to the community being so welcoming and so open. We are really grateful for that,” said Jennifer Goldstein.

Dr. Goldstein splits his time between the two practices. He is in Bandera three days a week. For more information, contact Bandera Eye Care at www.banderaeyecare. com