Dr. Gregory Parkhurst

An Open Letter to My Patients

I feel incredibly humbled and grateful that you have chosen us to accomplish quality vision for the life you live. My life’s work is to help people, just like you, enjoy life without the barriers created by poor vision. I love what I do because experiencing life with better vision allows people to connect with one another and enjoy the world around us every waking minute of our lives.

Having grown up with bad vision and astigmatism myself, I can fully identify with the frustration, hassles, and even risks of being dependent on glasses and contacts just like you may be now. We all have “embarrassing stories” from childhood that we’d rather forget. One or two probably popped into your head just now. One that painfully sticks out for me was when I was a junior high kid. Along with many of the other boys in my class, I had been invited to a birthday party at the lake. As soon as they said it was my turn to water ski, I immediately dove headfirst into the water. One problem: I had forgotten to take off my glasses before diving in! After thrashing around in the waves, grasping at my quickly disappearing glasses as they spiraled toward the bottom of the lake, that summer day still ranks as one of the most humiliating and frustrating experiences of my childhood. There went my chance to ski and have fun with the other boys and with it my ability to see, not only for the rest of that day but also the next several days until I could get a new pair of glasses.

That was just one of the reasons why back in 2003, I decided to have vision correction surgery myself. My vision was better than 20/20 within a week, and 14 years later, it is still exactly the same. It is often easy to forget by now what a life with nearsightedness and astigmatism was like. Since that time, I have had the privilege of performing over 14,000 procedures on patients from all over the world. Many of those I’ve helped are professional athletes and public figures whose names we all recognize, but more importantly, they are also some of my closest family members and friends. Those whom I’ve performed surgery for include my mother (who had LASIK), my father (who had laser cataract surgery with multifocal implant lenses), my mother-in-law, my wife’s best friend, some of my closest childhood friends, other eye doctors, and surgeons and their family, and countless military members who found themselves in environments where glasses and contacts simply are not an option.

Over the course of the last several years, I feel incredibly blessed to have helped so many of you from states and countries near and far accomplish your best natural vision. There are too many of your stories to recount here, but a couple come to mind. To you Jessica, who struggled with “coke-bottle glasses” since 1st grade and decided to have your mom come in from out of state to have her vision corrected too. Experiencing that moment when the two of you were a few weeks out from your procedures and sharing happy tears, celebrating being able to see better than either of you ever remembered was truly a highlight. And to you Javier, who grew up self-conscious due to blurred vision, seeing you experience newfound self-confidence and not having to hide behind those thick glasses. My life’s work is dedicated to you.

For those of you who’ve already trusted us at Parkhurst NuVision to correct your vision, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If we’ve not yet had the pleasure to meet you, please contact me here. I would be thrilled to meet you personally and see what we can do to help. For others who would like to know more about the details about my resume, training, and experience, please feel free to read on below. However, beyond diplomas, certificates, awards, and designations, know that the most important thing I think you should know is that I’m in this for you, and it would be an absolute privilege for me to see what we can do to help you achieve your best natural vision. Having my vision fixed has changed my life every waking minute. If you think it might benefit you, I’d love to meet with you and discuss your options in person.

With warm regards,

Dr. Gregory Parkhurst