With her children grown and out of the house, Linda Morgan, OD, FAAO, has a little more time for herself. So she’s gotten back into creating art. “I wouldn’t consider myself an artist. I took some classes, and my mom did oil painting,” she says, recalling her start. She always enjoyed it, but something had to give when she was in optometry school, working and raising children.
Today, Dr. Morgan works as a regional medical director with pharmaceutical company, Amgen, in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s a role she took on about five years ago – after a sales rep brought up the option. “The role is similar to medical science liaison. We talk to doctors about the products, mechanisms behind how they work and what’s
new. A salesperson brought up the similarities between patient education and education of colleagues, which made me start to explore it,” she says. “I had been practicing for nearly 20 years, and I didn’t think of it as an option,” she says. In the past few years, more female ODs have taken on roles like this.
To make sure she didn’t lose her patient care skills, she volunteers once a month at a no-cost clinic in Omaha.
And she paints, knits or works with multimedia. One project she’s working on now is an homage to Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, a bold abstract. For her version, she’s using broken pieces of jewelry in the bright robe. “I love texture in my art,” she says. She recently posted some of her mosaic and other work on a LinkedIn post, one of her first forays into letting her professional colleagues in on her hobby. She’s not publicizing it or selling it, but she enjoys it for the creative outlet it is.
Painting involves reflection and quiet. “You can’t do it sitting there for five minutes. When I feel inspired or have the time, I’ll spend three or four hours working on something,” she says.
At this point in her career, she appreciates being able to have more control over her time. At the end of April, for example, she’ll join a team from a North Dakota ophthalmology group that is traveling to Haiti to provide eye care services there.
“It’s important for people to have something outside of work. Doing something for yourself is good,” she says.
In the WO gift guide, an entire section is dedicated to women ODs and those in the eye care industry who create art. See their stories here.
