The Poplarville Eye Clinic serves the community by providing complete eye care.

In January, Dr. Bethany Harrington purchased the private practice from Dr. Lori Blackmer, who currently owns Picayune Eye Clinic.

While Harrington’s relatively new to the business world, she’s no stranger to the medical industry. She’s worked at the clinic for the past 12 years as an optometrist.

At an early age, Harrington said she was inspired to start a career in the eye care profession.

“I needed glasses at an early age and my optometrist was really my inspiration,” Harrington said. “I really liked the science and medical aspect of it.”

Since taking ownership of the clinic, Harrington said she, along with her staff, has made an effort to provide patients a full range of services, including eye care, measuring vision function and treating eye diseases like dry eyes, pink eye, glaucoma and cataracts.

“Our goal is to have our patients seeing good and being comfortable,” Harrington said.

The clinic also sells glasses and sunglasses, including fitting eyeglasses and contacts.

“I’m kind of making it a family business,” Harrington said. “My husband helps by cutting the lenses for the glasses. It helps make a faster turnaround and that’s a good thing for patients because they don’t want to wait too long.”

Harrington said that while her children are too young to consider taking up the family business, she hopes someday they would want to.

While the clinic focuses primarily on eye care, Harrington said she works with local primary healthcare providers in order to offer her patients complete medical care.

“The eyes are the windows to the body. You see a lot of issues in the eyes first so it’s important to look at everything when a patient has a problem in the eyes,” Harrington said.

In the future, Harrington said she plans to grow the practice and eventually purchase a bigger facility.

The clinic is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closes daily at 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. for lunch.

The clinic is located at 1249 S. Main St. in Poplarville.

For more information, call (601) 795-0137.