The Person Behind the Profession: What 20 Years in Optometry Taught Me About Burnout, Resilience, and Showing Up Fully
- Dr Pretty Basra
- Jun 16
- 2 min read
I have been in optics for over 20 years. I became an optometrist because I wanted to help people. Like most clinicians, I was good at the technical side, the tests, the diagnostics, the prescriptions. What I was less prepared for was everything that sits beneath the surface of a profession.
The identity questions. The pressure to perform. The invisible weight of always being the one with the answers. The particular kind of exhaustion that comes not from working hard, but from working in a way that slowly disconnects you from yourself.
This is the story I shared in my most recent keynote in Canada. And the response told me everything I needed to know about how widely it resonates.
What the profession doesn't prepare you for
Nobody trains you for the version of yourself that emerges ten, fifteen, twenty years in, when the initial passion has quietened and what's left is a more complicated relationship with the work you chose.
Nobody talks to you about the toll of emotional labour in clinical settings. Or how leadership adds a whole new layer of complexity to an already demanding role. Or what happens when the person who cares for everyone else's wellbeing has nothing left.
That conversation is missing. And its absence has a cost.
How this led me to ocular wellness
My clinical work and my speaking work are more connected than they might appear. In both spaces, I'm asking the same fundamental question: what does it look like to truly thrive, not just survive, in a demanding profession?
The answer, I've come to believe, involves paying attention to the whole person. Not just the prescription, or the performance metric, or the job title. The actual human being, with their stress responses and their nervous system and their need for rest and meaning.
That's why I integrated ocular wellness into my practice. That's why I speak about mental fitness and the female advantage. And that's why I keep telling the story of the person behind the profession, because every time I do, someone in the audience exhales and thinks: finally, someone said it.
If that's you, you're welcome. And you're not alone.
About Dr Pretty Basra
Dr Pretty Basra is a TEDx speaker, international keynote speaker and award-winning healthcare entrepreneur with over 20 years in optometry and 10 years in leadership. She delivers neuroscience-informed keynotes on mental fitness, burnout, the female advantage, and confidence, wealth and freedom, for organisations across the UK and internationally.
She is Head of Events for the Optical Women's Association, Chair of the ICB Optometry Forum, a WOPEC assessor, and a member of the General Optical Council's fitness to practise panel. She is also the first UK optometrist to integrate medical aesthetics and ocular wellness into clinical practice.
Pretty hosts the The Women Money Business podcast and runs the Inner Circle membership community for women in optometry and healthcare.
📍 Based in the UK · Available for keynotes, workshops and panels worldwide
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