August 9th was a tough day. Has someone you looked up to ever let you down? Of course,that’s like a requirement of growing up.  At 31 it’s happened many times in my life, personally and professionally.  As a female optometrist, I’ve been fortunate to have been mentored by a number of incredible women.  One of them is Dr. Tanya Gill.  When I first met her earlier this year I was inspired by her successful private practice, her amazing social media success, and her dedication to fighting toxic ingredients found in makeup and skin cleansers (perhaps the biggest cause of dry eye in women!), with her organic eyelid cleansing line We Love Eyes.  I hadn’t really thought about makeup and makeup removers in everyday patient care, and

talking to her about parabens and phthalates revolutionized the way I practice.

I’m a better doctor and my patients are benefiting because of Dr. Gill.

But like many, I cringed on August 9th and the days following reading some of Dr. Gill’s responses on her recent Reddit forum.  Reusing daily disposable contact lenses? Returning for yearly exams BS? How could a person I so admired think so differently, say things I considered downright dangerous to patients? And then more of me cringed when I read what my colleagues said about her. Crazy drunken soccer mom; millennial.  A woman, a millennial– that’s me.  So my generation is like a slur to hurl at people now?  I felt ostracized reading the criticism from fellow doctors as a young female OD that’s active on social media (I’m just trying to think of the most positive negating connotation “millennial” can have). My profession got hurt by the Reddit forum responses, but then we proceeded to hurt each other.

When Dr. Glover first asked me to do a podcast with him three months ago, I was excited and scared of course because I’m always battling the chronic throes of self doubt– what did I know about podcasts?! We came up with a list of people we wanted to bring on the show to make sure we thought we could get enough content to legitimately make this happen. Dr. Gill was on the top of my list.  We had a few other controversial guests (see Vitor Pamplona of Eyenetra) so I thought, let’s get a woman I admire, who we’ve both worked with and really enjoyed,