Diplomate Spotlight, Dr. Meghan Elkins

For Dr. Meghan Elkins, Board certification wasn’t a means to achieve status or higher pay, but rather the next logical step in her career to remind herself that she was still the life-long learner she committed to being in optometry school. And while she found the initial certification exam to be a challenge, she would strongly encourage her colleagues to rise to that challenge and earn their board certification!

A 2010 graduate of Southern College of Optometry, Dr. Elkins completed a Primary Care (mostly ocular disease) residency at the Salem VAMC.

“As the joke goes, ‘I’m trapped in a dark room with old men every day’”, states Dr. Elkins. “I absolutely love practicing within the VA, but our demographics are certainly shifting. Since my externship at the Mountain Home VAMC in January 2010, I haven’t left the VA network. It’s all I know. I decided to incorporate some vision rehab work with TBI patients in 2014, and I was able to start a specialty clinic within our optometry service, and that has been truly rewarding for me.”

Dr. Elkins is a member of the Armed Forces Optometric Society (AFOS) where she serves as the AFOS-SECO education liaison and Immediate Past President. She was recently named AFOS Optometrist of the Year for 2025 and VA Optometrist of the Year, honors for which she is incredibly grateful. She is also a member of the American Optometric Association (AOA) and is the current chair of the Strategic Communications Committee. In 2023, Dr. Elkins was honored to receive the AOA Media Advocacy Award and in 2025 she received the AOA Federal Advocacy Award.

Watching the profession expand and progress throughout her career, she looks forward to the future of optometry and what role board certification will play.  “I think we are still learning the true value of board certification as a profession,” said Dr. Elkins. “I am interested to see how board certification will help shape the growth that comes in the next 10 years. From my individual practitioner standpoint, the ongoing CAP assessments bring awareness to topics that were in my wheelhouse in optometry school, but have nothing to do with my current career modality at the VA. I truly find value-added growth every time I complete one.”

Outside of her passion for optometry and providing care for her patients, Dr. Elkins is a collector of hobbies. She has loved reading since childhood, enjoys traveling with her watercolor paints, and most importantly, spending time at home with her husband and dogs. As a frequent lecturer, Dr. Elkins bio is always read to the audience and the final line reads: her favorite hobbies include skiing, golf, chess, and scleral depression. She says that usually gets a chuckle, but it’s all completely true.