Home Walmart/Sams Club Community ODs For the Le Sisters, Optometry Is the Family Business

For the Le Sisters, Optometry Is the Family Business

Sisters (l-r)Dr. Yen Le and Dr. My Le decided to launch their careers inside Walmart where they are building a family business. Practicing an hour apart, the sisters see each other as collaborators, not competitors.

For My Le, OD, and Yen Le, OD, FAAO, their inspiration to go into optometry was influenced by their parents and sisters being physicians. The family’s shared vision is to make a positive difference in the lives of their patients each and every day.

Dr. Yen Le of Happy Family Eye Care in Mayodan, North Carolina, graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (now Salus University) in 2010. After graduation, she completed a residency in primary care and ocular disease in 2011 at The Eye Institute at Salus University before earning her fellowship in the American Academy of Optometry. After working in Pennsylvania, Dr. Yen Le was determined that she wanted to practice in her home sweet home state of North Carolina. After contacting Walmart about renting space, Dr. Yen Le received a call from Renee Hinshaw, a market health and wellness director for Walmart in North Carolina, offering her the opportunity to open her own practice and practice full-scope medical optometry.

Dr. My Le graduated optometry school from Salus University in 2013. She is currently practicing in Greensboro at Happy Eye Care Center inside a Walmart. Dr. My Le says she feels like she is a part of the Walmart family.

Both of the sisters say that they believe that the key to working in Walmart is to make a big impact in the community. They seek to provide patients with enriching educational and clinical experiences and provide top-quality care—both medical and refractive—in an accessible environment. At each practice, patients can be treated beyond routine eye exams including eye emergencies; foreign body removals; comprehensive eye exams with a heavy focus on diabetes, hypertension, macular degeneration, dry eyes and allergic conjunctivitis; pediatric and binocular vision exams; post-operative care; and specialty contact lens fittings. Both of the Le sisters let their patients know that they can count on them.

While the sisters practice about an hour apart from each other in North Carolina, Dr. My Le notes that neither of them sees the other as competition but rather as collaborators.

Independent but connected

While the sisters have some of the same training and certainly the same upbringing, their involvement in the other’s practice is limited to some light consultations. According to Dr. Yen Le, “We were trained at the same school so we are both very confident in what we do. We are very independent. If we have questions, we will ask. We are just a phone call away.”

Positive, dedicated leaders

Hinshaw speaks highly of both doctors, acknowledging their commitment to their patients and their willingness to do everything they can to be available for their patients. She calls them both “positive, dedicated leaders, well-known in their stores and communities” and commends their hearts for their patients.

Their top priority is to convey a happy, family environment that they want to pass on to every patient who comes through their respective doors. “It’s important to treat patients like family. We want our patients to feel welcome to our practice like it’s their second home,” says Dr. Yen Le. “Family is caring. The environment is more home-like, and patients feel more comfortable. Everyone who walks in here should be treated like family,” says Dr. My Le.

Indeed, the practices’ Yelp reviews rave about how friendly and efficient the staff is, how the doctors explain what’s happening and how patients, as one put it, “are treated like royalty.”

Both doctors say that they appreciate how Walmart has enabled them to practice independently, just as they appreciate how their family influence has helped—and continues to help them—in their successful businesses.

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