For Malinda Pence, OD, owner of Madeira Optical in Cincinnati, Ohio, the mission to offer innovative and preventive eyecare is rooted in a deeply personal history.
Having graduated from The Ohio State University in 1999 and acquired her current practice in 2002, Dr. Pence’s career has been defined by a relentless drive to adopt new technology and offer comprehensive treatment options, ensuring her patients receive personalized attention within an independent setting.
Dr. Pence was initially drawn to eyecare after watching her grandmother lose her sight to macular degeneration at the age of 67. Her experience as the youngest child, accompanying her mother to all of her grandmother’s appointments, gave her an early look at the devastating effects of progressive vision loss.
“I just sat there and watched my grandmother decline, and there wasn’t a whole lot to do about that,” Dr. Pence says.
This personal conviction led her to focus on innovation and prevention, rather than just low vision care, hoping to see the field evolve beyond the limited treatments available at that time.
Dr. Pence quickly adopted a “very preventive approach” to optometry, driven by a desire to protect her patients from the long-term, high-risk consequences of high prescriptions, such as retinal detachments. Her practice became a regional leader, noted as the first provider in Cincinnati to offer MiSight 1 day contact lenses, and one of the first in Ohio to offer Essilor Stellest spectacle lenses.
“There’s no part of what I do that’s rooted in wanting to be the first one to do something for the sake of being the first one to do it,” Dr. Pence says. “If I have the option to do something for my patients, I think it’s going to provide better care for them, I’m going to do it.”
COMPREHENSIVE DRY EYE CARE
The commitment to bringing specialized care in-house extends to dry eye management. Rather than actively recruiting new dry eye patients or sending existing patients out for specialized tests, Dr. Pence focuses on ensuring current patients can receive the best possible care without outside referrals.
“I’m not looking to be a dry eye clinic,” she says. “I want my patients that have dry eyes to be able to stay within our practice and treat them as best I possibly can. I don’t want to have to refer them to other offices for these things that we can handle.”
To this end, the practice has incorporated advanced technology, including an Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) machine and a low-level light therapy (LLLT) machine. This was another area where Dr. Pence was quick to adopt the technology, as she dove in headfirst and got an IPL and LLLT machine quickly when they received approval in Ohio.
However, similar to her efforts in myopia management, Dr. Pence explains that patient care and addressing her patients’ needs are of the utmost importance. She acknowledges that adding the latest equipment into a practice is costly, but there are important questions to ask yourself before making the purchase: How big is your patient base? What can you afford? What will provide the most value to patients in the long-term?
“We’re very close to a really large ophthalmology practice, so we have a lot of resources at our disposal,” Dr. Pence explains. “While we can send patients there for certain tests, it’s also a huge facility where they can get lost in the shuffle.”
Dr. Pence shares the example of a recent patient who was referred to a local office for a test–that she offers in-house–and the patient waited for several hours to have it done.
“I explained to the patient that we have the capabilities to do that specific test in the office, and we can do it while they’re here for a regular exam,” she says. “I always prioritize my patients’ quality of care. If I have the option to do something in-house that’s going to give my patients the highest quality of care, I want to be able to offer that to my patients that really need it.”
ENTREPRENEURSHIP RECOGNIZED: THE HEALTH CARE HEROES AWARD
In recognition of her pioneering work and business acumen in the Cincinnati area, Dr. Pence was honored with the 2026 Health Care Heroes Award in the Health Entrepreneur category. The award specifically recognized her practice for being the first to fully participate in and provide full scope myopia management in the region.
“Being recognized by my community is such a privilege and an honor,” Dr. Pence says. “I’m over 20 years into this career, and at this point, many people feel burnt out or uninspired, but I see all these new innovations coming down the pike, and it makes me excited to continue to do this.”
She explains how, in practice today, she takes OCTs on her patients every day–a part of the eye exam that wasn’t around when she was in optometry school. It’s this constant advancement in the industry that drives her to continue to offer her patients the best.
“There’s no shortage of new options for practitioners, whether that’s in myopia management, dry eye, vision therapy–anything,” Dr. Pence says. “There’s more and more ways to give your patients the best experience possible and provide personalized attention to their needs, and that makes this field all the more interesting and inspires me to want to keep doing this every single day.”
For Dr. Pence, leading as a woman in eyecare means always following her passions, believing that patients sense when a practitioner truly believes in the treatment. Her work stands as a testament to the power of combining personal passion with technological initiative to deliver a high-quality, preventative vision for the future.
