WHEN Dr. Lareen Dawn Tan graduated from Centro Escolar University in Manila, she faced a choice that many young healthcare professionals encounter: build a career in the nation’s capital, or return home.
For many, staying in Metro Manila would have been the easier path.
Dr. Tan chose otherwise.
Born and raised in Davao City, she returned home with a simple but ambitious mission, to make advanced optometry specialties more accessible to the people of Mindanao, so that patients would no longer need to travel hundreds of kilometers in search of specialized eye care.
More than a decade later, that decision has transformed a modest Davao clinic into a nationally recognized eye care brand, proving that world-class healthcare can be built outside the country’s capital.
A family dedicated to vision
Eye care has always been woven into Dr. Tan’s life.
She comes from a family deeply rooted in the profession. Her father is of Kapampangan and Bicolano heritage, while her mother, who is of Bisaya, Spanish, and Chinese descent, formerly served as Dean of a College of Optometry. Today, nearly ten members of their family practice optometry.
Growing up surrounded by eye care professionals, Dr. Tan developed an early appreciation for the profession.
A consistent honor student, she graduated from Centro Escolar University and became an Optometry Board Topnotcher in 2015. Today, after more than eleven years in practice, she has received numerous national and international awards and citations recognizing her clinical excellence, innovation, and contributions to the profession.
Coming home
After graduation, Dr. Tan returned to Davao instead of pursuing opportunities in Metro Manila.
She spent her first two years practicing alongside her mother, gaining invaluable experience while quietly shaping her own vision for what eye care could become in Mindanao.
After getting married, she established Eyecare Deluxe inside Abreeza Ayala Mall.
The clinic occupied only around 60 square meters.
It was modest in size, but ambitious in purpose.
Growing one specialty at a time
Dr. Tan never intended to become everything at once.
Instead, she focused on building carefully, adding one specialty after another as her knowledge, experience, and technology grew.
Eyecare Deluxe first became known for pediatric optometry and vision therapy for strabismus and amblyopia or lazy eye.
Soon afterward came low vision rehabilitation to help improve the residual vision of patients suffering from legal blindness.
Then orthokeratology, as a safer non-surgical alternative to LASIK for adult patients, and as a myopia control management for pediatric patients.
Then rigid gas permeable (RGP), scleral, and hybrid specialty contact lenses, for severe dry eyes, keratoconus, and complex refractive errors.
Then PhotoTherm™ for severe dry eye disease, meibomian gland dysfunction, chronic allergic conjunctivitis, ocular rosacea, and demodex.
Then comprehensive myopia control with MyoLight Red Light Therapy, which helped prevent, and in some cases, reverse the progression of nearsightedness.
Each new specialty was introduced with one goal: to provide patients in Mindanao with advanced non-surgical eye care that had previously been difficult to access locally.
Rather than asking patients to travel elsewhere for specialized care, Dr. Tan wanted to bring those specialized services closer to home.
When patients began traveling to Davao
Something unexpected happened.
As Eyecare Deluxe continued to expand its expertise, patients began coming not from nearby provinces alone but from across the Philippines.
People from Luzon and the Visayas started flying to Davao specifically to consult with Dr. Tan.
Her original goal had simply been to make advanced non-surgical eye treatments accessible to the people of Mindanao.
Instead, nearly half of her patients eventually became visitors who traveled to Davao specifically to seek those treatments.
It was a remarkable reversal.
For decades, many Mindanaoans had traveled to Metro Manila for highly specialized healthcare.
Now, patients from other parts of the country were traveling to Davao for advanced specialty eye care.
The clinic had quietly become a destination for medical travel.
As her reputation continued to grow, Dr. Tan received invitations from several major mall developers to establish clinics in Metro Manila.
She had to decline. At the time, her children were still very young, and she chose to remain in Davao.
A homegrown brand recognized in nedical tourism
By 2023, Eyecare Deluxe had become more than a local specialty clinic.
When Davao City hosted the Philippine MICE Conference (Micecon), a national convention highlighting Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions, Eyecare Deluxe was featured as the only medical tourism destination in the special Explore Davao magazine published by SunStar exclusively for the event.
The recognition reflected something that had already become evident in daily practice:
Patients were no longer coming to Davao solely for tourism or business.
Many were coming specifically for the services of Eyecare Deluxe.
Expanding to Metro Manila
Only after Davao had become the foundation of Eyecare Deluxe did Dr. Tan decide it was time to expand beyond Mindanao.
In the middle of 2024, she began searching for the right location in Metro Manila.
She chose Centuria Medical Makati, one of the country’s premier medical office buildings.
Recognizing that she could not personally stay in Manila full-time, she partnered with respected optometrists and ophthalmologists in Metro Manila who shared the same commitment to comprehensive, patient-centered eye care.
The clinic was equipped with a complete suite of advanced diagnostic technology and benefited from Centuria Medical’s modern surgical suites and patient facilities.
Eyecare Deluxe officially celebrated its Metro Manila Grand Opening on February 25, 2025.
The expansion further increased the number of patients coming not only from different parts of the Philippines but also from overseas.
Investing back into Davao
For many businesses, expanding into Metro Manila becomes the beginning of a gradual shift away from their hometown.
For Dr. Tan, it had the opposite effect.
Her next major investment was not another Manila branch.
It was an even bigger investment back in Davao.
She wanted the people of Mindanao to have access to the same level of advanced diagnostics, specialty optometry, lasers, ophthalmology, and surgical care available in major medical centers.
But there was one challenge.
The original clinic inside Abreeza Mall had simply become too small.
Its approximately 60-square-meter space could no longer accommodate the complete integrated eye center she envisioned.
Determined to bring that vision to life, Dr. Tan searched beyond the mall and eventually found a 240-square-meter commercial space along J.P. Laurel Avenue in Bajada, one of Davao City’s busiest commercial corridors.
The new Eyecare Deluxe Integrated Eye Center houses comprehensive diagnostic facilities, advanced non-surgical eye treatments, specialty optometry services, laser procedures, ophthalmology subspecialties, and surgical services under one roof.
Its grand opening is scheduled for August 12, 2026, in time for the Kadayawan Festival.
More than growing a business
Looking back, nearly every major decision in Dr. Tan’s career has followed the same guiding principle.
She returned to Davao after graduation when remaining in Manila may have been the easier career choice.
She declined early opportunities to expand into Metro Manila while her family was still young.
She built Eyecare Deluxe one specialty at a time rather than attempting to become everything overnight.
Only after establishing a strong foundation in Davao did she expand nationally.
And even then, her next major investment was not another clinic in Manila, but an even larger investment back in the city where her journey began.
That consistency has become the defining characteristic of her story.
It is not simply the story of a business expanding into new markets.
It is the story of staying faithful to a mission while allowing that mission to grow.
Looking ahead
Reflecting on her journey, Dr. Tan says the vision that brought her home in 2015 remains unchanged, even as its impact has grown far beyond what she first imagined.
“When I returned to Davao in 2015, my dream was simply to make advanced eye care more accessible for the people of Mindanao. I never set out to build a national brand. I simply wanted to solve more eye problems for more people. Everything else grew from that mission.”
Today, Eyecare Deluxe serves patients from across the Philippines and beyond.
Yet despite its national presence, its identity remains unmistakably Davao-grown.
Perhaps that is what makes Dr. Tan’s journey resonate with so many people.
It is not merely the story of a successful healthcare entrepreneur.
It is the story of someone who believed that excellence did not have to begin in the country’s largest cities.
More than a decade ago, Dr. Lareen Dawn Tan returned to Davao believing that advanced eye care could flourish outside the country’s capital.
Today, patients from across the Philippines travel to Davao because she proved it could.
By choosing to come home, investing in her community, and remaining anchored to a clear purpose, she demonstrated that a healthcare brand built in Davao could earn the trust of patients across the nation, and in doing so, help elevate Davao’s place on the map as a destination for advanced eye care. PR