Victoria Soto
Patient Advocate
Advocating on behalf of patients is what Victoria Soto always has been about. “That’s why taking advantage of the opportunity to become a patient advocate at the Mind-Eye Institute seemed the natural thing to do,” she says.
As patient advocate, Victoria is the friendly face and voice that patients see and hear when they first enter the Mind-Eye Institute and when they leave, oftentimes following hours of testing and interaction with Mind-Eye optometrists. “My responsibility is to greet patients, provide them information, answer their questions, and, most importantly, make their overall Mind-Eye experience a comfortable and satisfying one,” Victoria says.
Not a difficult task for someone who has made health care a career goal. Indeed, helping others is what has prompted Victoria to work toward earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology at National Louis University and why she opted to undergo 40 hours of unpaid training to become a certified medical advocate for a local counseling center. Although now serving as full-time patient advocate at the Mind-Eye Institute, Victoria continues volunteer work once a week as medical advocate to help survivors of sexual assault.
“The description of what a patient advocate does at Mind-Eye is perfectly in line with my interests,” Victoria says. But before joining the team, Victoria says she did some homework; she checked out the Mind-Eye website.
“I kept thinking ‘is this place for real?’” she recalls, after watching the videos and reading about how the staff help patients who have struggled for years with symptoms of head injuries, concussions, strokes, learning disorders and other neurological issues. But during the first month in her patient advocacy role, “I learned a whole lot about the advanced science behind the Mind-Eye Institute, and that knowledge has made me more aware of the forces that affect our patients and, so, more experienced in helping them find comfort.”
When not advocating, Victoria is studying and reading her psychology textbooks, preparing for school exams, or simply trying to relax. “My greatest joy is having a day to myself” – certainly, a rare commodity these days for a busy Victoria.