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The Hopping family includes, from left, optometry student Reed; Desiree Hopping, O.D.; AOA Vice President Ron Hopping, O.D., MPH; Grant; Pat; and past AOA president Richard Hopping, O.D.

For AOA Vice President Ronald Hopping, O.D., MPH, you could say that optometry is in his blood. His father, Richard L. Hopping, O.D., served as the AOA’s president in 1970 and received the OD of the Year Award in 1988. His wife, Desiree Hopping, O.D., specializes in pediatrics and is his business partner in their practice, Hopping Eye Associates, based in Houston, Texas. They both are therapeutic optometrists and optometric glaucoma specialists. And now, one of their two sons, Reed, attends the University of Houston College of Optometry. 

Q: With such an influential past, growing up with a father who practiced optometry, did he ever talk to you about becoming an optometrist?

A: My dad was smart enough to never say, “You ought to think about becoming an optometrist.”

I went through college pre-med and was accepted to medical school, but by then I had already decided that I was going to become an optometrist.

But I didn’t decide to go into optometry until my senior college year, and I pretty much did that on my own. Certainly my dad was a huge influence all the way through, but he never pushed me. 

Q: Can you share some of the specifics of your practice career?

A: When I graduated from Southern California College of Optometry, I had some opportunities in California and considered doing contact lens research in industry. But I came to Texas because of Desiree, where she was in optometry school.

I taught a number of clinics for several years at the University of Houston College of Optometry, including primary care, children’s vision, learning disabilities and general and specialty contact lenses. During this time I got a master’s degree in public health from the University of Texas because I knew it would help me be more effective lobbying legislators for optometry.

After we were married we decided to open our practice, which has now grown to four doctors. About two years ago, we had outgrown our office, so we opened a smaller, second office to handle that overflow.

The practice is really a very broad general practice. I do some specialty contact lens work in my practice, but I really think of myself as a family practitioner. I do children’s work, with binocular vision and learning disabilities, and I enjoy working with my older patients. They have some unique needs, and they are a lot of fun as well.

Even though I have some specialties in my background, I enjoy the diversity of optometry.

What I really enjoy most about practicing is helping people and the detective work when you are working with a patient. There’s a bit of detective work trying to figure out what’s wrong with the patient and how are you going to be able to help them. I just find that fun.   

Q: What professional goals are you and your wife, Dr. Desiree Hopping, hoping to accomplish in your practice?

A: We’ve been fortunate that the practice has grown well and we have been able to obtain the staff, equipment and types of technology that allow us to do a very thorough examination for our patients.

That’s always been our goal – to provide the best care and the most personal care for the patients.    

Q: What do you hope for your son and other future ODs as they enter into this profession?

A: There are individual hopes, and there are professional hopes.

From a personal standpoint, I know Reed will provide very good care and very personalized care to his patients. He will find great enjoyment from that. My biggest concern is that he has a great profession to enjoy as I have.

From a professional standpoint, my hope and belief is that the profession will be a strong, independent profession, as the primary vision and eye care health profession for the public.

I remember when I went into optometry, it gave my dad’s work for the AOA and profession more meaning.

And now that my son is going into the profession, it gives my volunteer work more meaning as well, and it helps me think about what is best for optometry’s future.

Q: Finally, you have been a member of the AOA since 1974 and have served in a number of roles before becoming vice president – chair of the AOA Information & Member Services and also of the AOA Communications Group Advisory Committee; serving on the Healthy Eyes Healthy People® Oversight Committee; and serving as a charter member of the Contact Lens & Cornea Section and the Sports Vision Section. What has changed about the organization and profession of optometry, and what has remained the same?

A: Since I’ve been in it, the profession has undergone revolutionary changes with the use of diagnostic and therapeutic pharmaceutical agents and with us being able to care for patients’ eye health needs.

All those things have occurred since I’ve been in the profession. Those have all been positive things for the patient and, therefore, they have been positive things for the profession.

I fully expect that in the next 10 to 15 years, with health care reform, we will have as many changes as we have had previously.

With health care reform, and the impact that it’s going to have on our patients, I think we have great opportunities and great risk.

I have every belief that we can come through it well.

How the AOA has changed is when I became a member, AOA membership was the accepted and expected thing to do.

Today joining the AOA is not automatic, and our profession has been weakened.

But out of this has come some positive change.

In response, the AOA has grown and is very focused on helping the individual member, as Dr. Ellis has said, thrive and succeed in their practice.

The thing that has remained the constant is that I continue to be impressed – as I was when I entered into the profession – with the care and concern that optometrists have for their patients.

Overwhelmingly optometrists care for their patients on a very personal level. This has remained constant, and I don’t see that in other health professions – not nearly to the level that I see it in optometry.

The other constant in optometry is our relative size. If you look at the numbers, we are a small profession. And in that sense, it makes us family.

It’s an important perspective for the profession to remember – that we are a small number, yet we’ve been highly successful only because we’ve stayed together and worked together as an AOA family.

Families have fights and disagreements, but we’ve been successful because we work together as a family for our profession and our patients.