The Eye Doctor on 3rd Avenue

“On my first eye mission trip,” Dr. Eric Paulsen recalled, “I came across a patient who was 64.” The typical procedure was that he would do the examination, write the prescription for glasses, and then the patient would move to the next station.

“This woman was very near sighted,” he continued. “I knew that glasses would be a dramatic change for her, so I told her to stay and picked them up for her. When I asked her to read the chart, she was so moved she couldn’t speak!”

For 12 years Paulsen has taken mission trips, mostly to Mexico and the Dominican Republic, helping people who do not receive eye care.

“You get more out of it,” he added, “than what you put into it.”

When young Paulsen graduated from Sturgeon Bay High School, he knew he wanted to be a health care provider, but not a physician like his grandfather. His father was a dentist in a building he shared with an optometrist, both practices that appealed to Paulsen.

After graduating from Carroll College with a degree in chemistry in 1978, Paulsen “let fate choose” his career: he was admitted the Illinois College of Optometry, graduated in 1982 and joined Dr. C.L. Pfarr in Surgeon Bay. He purchased the practice in 1984 and made a life for himself and family in the town of his birth.

Door County Eye Associates has become a fixture on 3rd Avenue, a practice that offers comprehensive eye care, including prescriptions for glasses and contacts, treatment of eye diseases and injuries, and laser vision correction co-management (working with patients before and after refractive surgery).

The business website offers instructive videos, details on the anatomy of the eye, an explanation of various visual conditions, answers to questions on refractive surgery options, and product information. Patients may schedule appointments, re-order contacts, and register online.

“Things change so dramatically in communication,” Paulsen said, “that you make changes or you are left behind. We work hard at being as cutting edge with computer applications as we do with visual technology.”

Paulsen is past president of the Northeast Wisconsin Optometric Association, and was honored with the Wisconsin Optometrist of the Year Award for 2009.

“Sturgeon Bay is a very sophisticated small town,” Paulsen said, reflecting on his choice to return after his schooling. “But it’s really the people. Everyone thinks Door County is beautiful, and it is, but it’s the people that make it special.

“Most satisfying are the relationships I have with my patients,” he continued, “knowing generations of families as patients.”

However, he is grounded by his family as well. Paintings by his artist grandmother hang on the walls of his office spaces. She was orphaned at 10 and grew up to marry her physician husband. An abstract painter, “she was very contemporary for her time,” Paulsen said. When she came to Sturgeon Bay to visit her son, (Paulsen’s father) she became friends with people in the town and gave them some of her paintings. Since then, a number of the pieces have been returned to Paulsen and are now part of his personal collection.

Another of Paulsen’s interests is cooking, a skill that developed by necessity. When he was a boy his mother became ill and passed away during his senior year in high school. He and his father learned to cook because of their circumstances.

Paulsen’s wife Dee was a Sturgeon Bay elementary teacher for 21 years. Presently she is office manager for Door County Eye Associates.

Their son Nels works as a water quality specialist for the State of Tennessee; he now plans to attend law school. Their daughter Annika is a junior at Knox College (Galesburg, Illinois) with majors in economics and environmental studies; she is currently spending a semester abroad in Thailand, a follow-up to the Paulsen family hosting an exchange student from that country.

“I’ve worked hard and my practice has grown,” Paulsen said. “I’m fortunate it has happened. A time will come when I need someone to help me. But retirement is hard to think about because I like the work so much!”

To learn more about Dr. Eric Paulsen and his optometry practice, visit http://www.dcea.com or search on Facebook.