Pembroke – After a career spanning 46 years, Dr. Michael O’Grady is retiring this week from optometry.

He graduated from the School of Optometry at Waterloo University in 1976 and at age 71 he feels it’s time to move on to the next phase of his life.

“I feel now is the time to let younger and smarter people take over,” he said as he continued with my eye exam in his downtown Pembroke office. “I know in your 70s your cognitive process starts to slow down. Mine hasn’t yet, and neither has yours, but the time has come to let younger people take over.”

Michael William Joseph O’Grady was the first born to Archie and Florence O’Grady of Eganville on May 9, 1953. His dad owned O’Grady Brothers garage in Eganville, a business he and brother Arnold established the same year. Mrs. O’Grady was a busy stay-at-home mom, raising 11 children. While the O’Grady name was well known in the automotive business with brothers Archie, Arnold and Jack all being first-generation mechanics, and brothers Pat, Jim, Tom and cousin John following in their fathers’ footsteps in the next generation – Michael chose to pursue a much different path in life.

From the time he started Grade 1 at St. James and finished his local schooling in 1972 at Opeongo High School, he had his eyes set on a career in medicine. He had the smarts and the marks and also the option to go into optometry, dentistry or medicine.

“I chose optomtetry because I thought it would be less working hours at that time,” he said. “But if you put your heart into it, you are there for your patients 24-7.”

That’s what Dr. O’Grady did. He put his heart into his practice and quickly earned a solid reputation as being a down-to-earth, happy person who did his job well and provided excellent care for his patients.

Perhaps it was his solid upbringing or just growing up in an era when people really cared, but just like the old-time country doctors, he would often go to the homes of his patients who couldn’t get to his office. They may have been living in Cormac, Westmeath or the heart of Pembroke, or in one of the many retirement homes, but he never refused to provide care.

After graduating from Waterloo, he began working with Dr. Stuart Taylor in Pembroke and in 1986 he bought the Taylor practice. He has worked all of his 46 years in two different locations on Pembroke Street West.

After working out of the Taylor office, two doors over, for 15 years, he decided he’d like to expand and so he purchased the former Sally’s Dress Shop when it came up for sale. He and one of the finishing lab owners, Eric Scaife, decided they would buy the building and establish their own lab, allowing them to become more independent.

“And we did it. We bought the building, restructured it, created an optometric clinic and Stuart stayed for about seven years.”

Dr. O’Grady moved into his present location, across the street from Town and Country Men’s Wear, in 1993.

Reflecting on his career, he quickly admits he still loves optomtetry and his patients.

“I still would do it, but I just know when I hit my 70s, and I see it all the time with my patients, we just don’t have the quickness of thought that we did at 23 or 24.,” he shared. “It’s a very demanding profession and one of the more difficult ones to get into and it always has been.

“We’re equated with medicine. We refer to physicians, we refer to dentists, we refer to everybody because we find related health problems. Your frame of mind has to be at a high functional level all the time. And mine is still but I’m getting out before it starts to fade on me.”

Going into retirement, Dr. O’Grady was still providing eye care to almost 1,500 people. He has performed about 100,000 eye tests and has seen almost every visual problem.

“Enough to write a book, but probably won’t, for awhile anyway.”

He’d like to continue and knows he is competent enough to carry on, but after much thought he feels it’s better to have younger eye doctors in the practice.

“And quick thinkers too,” he added. “Because every time a patient comes in, you probably have to have about 30 things in your head that you kind of assess to make sure that you don’t miss something.”

Attracted Valley Doctors

Throughout his career, Dr. O’Grady kept an eye out for young people from the Valley going into optometry. Dr. Howard Kuehl, who was raised in Pembroke, was one of those individuals.

“I had known him since he was a young student. He told me he wanted to become an optometrist and I said ‘if you want to become an optometrist I have a practice for you’.

“I always tried to get people from the Valley to come back to the Valley. That’s how that worked out.”

In later years, Barry’s Bay native Brandon Kluke graduated and joined the practice.

Despite his busy practice, Dr. O’Grady has volunteered in the community and also made time to enjoy sports. A frequent volunteer at Festival Hall, he plans to continue contributing. He is also an avid cyclist who rides about 2000 km in the warmer months and one of his goals in retirement is to do three legs of the Tour de France.

“I just want to say I did it because I do a lot of biking in the summer,” he said.

He also works out at a gym, plays a bit of hockey – an avid Montreal Canadiens fan he always wanted to play professional hockey but said he was too small. Hunting and fishing have also been life-long passions.

“I have lots to do,” he said.

And then there are the five children: Aubyn in Dawson City, Ayron and daughter-in-law, Codie in Pembroke, Hannah in North Kelowna, Donald in Ireland and Arthur in Pembroke. He also has three grandchildren: Jaxon, Huxley and Scottie-Ann.

“My kids have things they want me to do and I want to go to Ireland where Donald is studying to become a Franciscan Monk,” he said.

Dr. O’Grady has arranged for all of his patients to have a new eye doctor.

“Overall, I liked everything I’ve done in my career since day one,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed all my patients. I don’t think I’ve ever had a patient I didn’t enjoy and if I was to go back and start all over again, I’d do the same thing.”

Dr. O’Grady said it has been an honour to have the privilege of caring for his patients all these years in the Ottawa Valley.