Take Your Daughter To Work: A Priceless Experience
by Pola Rosen, Ed.D.

Recently, the waiting room in Dr. Richard J. Mackool’s office was crowded with patients requiring procedures for eye ailments ranging from cataract removal and lens implants to lasik and treatment for conjunctivitis. It was an ordinary day in the life of the well-known eye surgeon who has operated successfully on thousands of patients and given them hope for a new life. As each patient was called in turn for a thorough examination, they were greeted by Dr. Mackool accompanied by his white-coated, charming 12-year-old daughter Serena.

“This is the second year I’ve gone with my dad on ‘take your daughter to work’ and it’s cool”, she exclaimed. “I can see what my dad does all day, get to meet his patients and see what they think. I also learn what the instruments are used for,” she added. An exciting part of the day was observing her father performing lasik surgery for elimination of eyeglasses. “I didn’t say anything. I was careful not to bother my dad or his patients.”

Serena is a 6^th grader at the Western Middle School in Connecticut. Among her favorite subjects are art, English and science. She may become a physician or a ballet dancer, she avers.

Dr. Mackool praises the concept of taking children to work highly having taken his son, now a surgeon, and his older daughter, now an attorney, to his office when they were younger. “I love sharing my world with Serena; it lets her get to know the other side of me that she wouldn’t ordinarily see. I enjoy seeing her enthusiasm as well as the patients’ responses. Seeing my daughter makes patients aware that their doctor is humanistic. But, most of all, it enables us to share each other’s life in a special way that is priceless.”