Mary Anne Murphy, OD, of Broomfield, Colorado, works a nontraditional schedule herself, and she encourages her three female associates and staff to do so as well. The practice is open about 60 hours a week; she and her associates typically work about three days in patient care plus an occasional Saturday. There’s a reason for that. Dr. Murphy says she wants them involved in the community.
“I encourage everyone to be involved in professional, corporate and community organizations. These affiliations are important,” she says. Indeed, she estimates that about three-fourths of her patients have some direct link to someone in the office because of these connections in parenting groups, schools, neighborhood associations, business organizations and more.
Dr. Murphy opened her practice in 2006, about a week after her daughter was born. The practice grew, and she moved to a larger location after two years, adding two associates. Now Dr. Murphy is joined by Shira Pipkin, OD; Marisa Perez, OD, FAAO; and Tracy Aigner, OD. The concept was built around the idea of “having it all. We want to have families. We want to have a good job. The concept was never to work too hard; we work hard when we’re here, but on the days we’re not here, we work really hard in our communities and we work really hard at being moms.”
Full time is defined as four days a week, but most of the doctors and staff work three. Dr. Murphy says the schedule provides the doctors with the energy to work hard in the office and “make a difference in our communities when we’re not here.”
