A Legacy of Service
Some people have a clear path in their lives to becoming an optometrist. It’s pretty much a straight shot, from their transformational first lenses dispensed by a caring OD to four years at SCCO. Others are like student Thuymi Dinh, who did in fact have formative early experiences in vision care, but then went on to take somewhat curvy path to optometry.
IN HER FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS
When Thuymi finished high school, her strong desire to serve her country, inspired in large part by her father – who served as an officer in the Vietnamese Navy and helped others escape the country as Saigon fell – won out over her childhood dreams of becoming a doctor, and she applied to the extremely selective U.S. Naval Academy. There she majored in information technology and competed as a Division I swimmer, before graduating and being commissioned into the U.S. Marine Corps as an officer.
After five years of service to her country, Thuymi received an honorable discharge, at which point she put her IT degree to use as a consultant and project manager at a Fortune 500 company. Then, with great accomplishment under her belt, and all the trappings of
a successful career laid out before her, Thuymi’s childhood dreams came calling. The desire to help people as a health care provider never really left her, so she quit her job, sold her house, and began obtaining her prerequisites so she could apply to SCCO.
MORE ROLE MODELS
Now in her second year, Thuymi sees the concept of service as a through-line that followed her along the different turns in her life. “I’m very passionate about helping others,” she says. “That’s been the pattern in my career and even before my career, whether it’s serving in the Marines, my work as a swim coach and personal trainer, and of course, my goal of becoming an optometrist. I always want some kind of opportunity to serve.”
At SCCO, Thuymi has ample opportunities to employ the leadership skills she developed as a military officer, as well as a great role model to add to her father’s example for the type of service-centered career an optometrist with a military background can have. “Dr. Corina Van de Pol is someone I greatly respect and admire,” says Thuymi. “When I compare my military service to hers, I am so humbled, because of all she has done for the military and optometry communities.”