Owner of Harbor Eye Associates has provided eye care in Oswego County for over 45 years. “I just put up a shingle and I waited for patients,” he says of his early beginnings
By Stefan Yablonski
Optometrist David J. Dexter has been providing eye care for Oswego County families for more than 47 years with specializations in primary care, contact lenses and ocular disease. Known as Dr. Dexter, he is a fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and serves on the board for the State University of New York College of Optometry. He also serves the United States Congress as a representative of the American Optometric Association.
In 1978, he graduated with honors from the University of California Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine in southern California.
After graduation from optometry school, he was extensively published for his work in the development of new gas permeable contact lens materials. He resides in Oswego.
Q: Where were you born and raised?
A: I was born in the Fulton area. My father got out of World War II and opened a medical practice in Fulton. My two sisters and I were raised in Fulton and went to Fulton schools.
Q: Where did you continue your education?
A: I went to St. Lawrence University and decided that optometry would be a really interesting venue. It’s similar to general medicine but not quite the same intensity in terms of night and day — in the old days your practice was right in your house. When I decided to go to optometry school, my father said ‘where are you going to go’ and I said ‘I’d go to the first school that accepts me,’ which happened to be Southern Cal. It was the No. 1 ranked school at the time; there were only 12 schools at that time.
Q: Do you remember your first office?
A: I knew I wanted to come back to the East Coast. I opened my practice in Oswego and at that time Oswego and Fulton was a long-distance phone call — in 1978. I opened a small office on Bridge Street with three rooms, right next to what was Gentile’s Camera Shop. Bart Paura and Bart Gentile became my adopted fathers because they owned the whole block. They would check on me every single morning to see how I was doing. They said they would help me get patients. They said they’d get billboards and walk the sidewalk to promote me.
Q: How hard was it to get started?
A: I’ll tell ya, it was not an easy thing because I just put up a shingle and I waited for patients — just put up a shingle and waited. I started seeing a lot of children and that was a smart move because when you see a child then you end up seeing the older children and then you see the parents and then the grandparents and then the neighbors. Everything was based on referral. It took quite a while.
Q: You’ve moved around since then, right?
A: I was in that three-room office for a couple years. Then I moved into an office on Utica Street (that he shared with a dentist friend. They called the building “the eye tooth” building). I outgrew that and moved to the stone building on Third and Schuyler. My dad, who was still part-time medicine, he and I renovated that building and put some apartments in. We outgrew that and moved downtown where Riverwalk now is. For a little while I went over to the old city school district building on East First Street and then I moved over to where I am now, the old Pizza Hut.
Q: When did you open the Pulaski office?
A: That was in 1980.
Q: Did you have to invest a lot of money in equipment?
A: I would dare say that the technology that we have gotten to at this level — we’ve got probably close to a million dollars in equipment. The reimbursement from insurance hasn’t gone up, so we are operating on 20-year-old income with million dollar equipment. We are probably the best equipped office in Central New York. We never scrimped on anything for our patient care. We also have the best equipment because that is what our patients deserve.
Q: What services do you provide?
A: We offer comprehensive eye exams, advanced vision correction services, including a wide selection of eyeglass frames, lenses and contact lenses. We also provide co-managed care and consultation for retinal and cataract surgery, working alongside our experienced and highly regarded surgeon, Dr. Justin Dexter of Eye Surgeons of Central New York, for quality preoperative and postoperative services.
Q: So your son has followed in your footsteps?
A: Yes. My son, Justin, is in Syracuse. He works indirectly with us. My oldest son, David II, is a vascular surgeon. You don’t want to see him unless you are really sick.
Q: How many patients do you normally see?
A: We see anywhere from 20 to 30 people a day. We do all the eye emergencies. I’ve been on the hospital staff for I don’t know how many years, probably 20 years. I back up the emergency room as well as all the urgent care centers. We are on call 24/7.
Q: Does your wife do help at the office?
A: Yes, my wife [Lori Youngman] works with us and I just hired two new young doctors that will join us right out of school in Boston. We maybe will eventually turn it over to them. I say I am going to work until it is not fun anymore.
Q: What’s the best part of your job?
A: I get to do nice things for nice people.
Q: The least enjoyable part?
A: Fighting with insurance companies is the least enjoyable. That’s got to be true for every health professional. That’s probably every health professional’s nightmare.
Q: If you weren’t doing this, what might you be doing?
A: My father also built houses and I’ve built houses with both my kids. So I’d probably be a building developer like my dad.
Q: Do you have any hobbies?
A: Oh my God, yes. I love boating. I go boating all the time and I have a little horse barn. Years ago my wife and I wound up in a rodeo in Arizona and won. That’s one of our many claims to fame. We’ve done a lot of interesting things. It’s still fun.
Q: Any thoughts of slowing down or even retiring?
A: As I get older, my patients say ‘you aren’t going to retire are you?’ I say some day and they say ‘you can’t!’ I think about slowing down a little bit just so I have more time for personal things. I want to get the new doctors up to speed and of course introduce them to the community.
