In another step up for the medical community of Flathead County, the Glacier Eye Clinic has hired Gus Stein as a pediatric and comprehensive ophthamologist.

For children with eye problems, Stein will save a trip to Missoula for surgery.

The father of two will deal mostly with children and amblyopia (lazy eye) and strabismus (crossed eyes), but he has comprehensive training to deal with eyes at all stages of development.

“Those are the two most common problems that kids run into,” he said. “But in general, pediatric eyes are a little bit tougher to examine and they have a little bit different set of things that occur.”

Things relatively easy to treat in adults, such as glaucoma, become more difficult to handle in children’s eyes.

But Stein, fresh off years in Seattle’s busy medical market, has been dealing with difficult-to-treat problems for a while. He spent the last year at Seattle Children’s hospital.

He took on rare cases that kept him on his toes and says he will miss working with the unusual circumstances.

His arrival at Glacier Eye Clinic takes the load off founder and head practitioner Steve Weber, who was able to do the surgeries children required but found it difficult to manage every person who needed eye work.

Stein’s arrival at work in early September is an exciting time for the clinic — which is building a new facility in north Kalispell — and for the 32-year old doctor.

“Seattle is a great place and I really liked living there and training there,” he said. “I’m probably most excited about the amazing access to the outdoors. I’m a big skier. I like the people, I like the laid-back attitudes.”

Stein, a Coeur d’Alene native, went to Carroll College in Helena where he met his wife-to-be, Jen, who is the new assistant principal at Edgerton Elementary School. They spent summers at Salmon Lake near Seeley Lake.

“Early on we targeted the Flathead as a place we’d want to live,” he said. “It was a very slow build. It started a while ago, but talking with the partners and that it was the right fit for us. It always felt lucky like we even had the chance to work with Glacier.”

He said Kalispell reminds him of Coeur d’Alene when he was growing up. The small-town feel with friendly people is like his hometown two decades ago.

His two young children, Kaylin, 5, and Luke, 3, remind Stein daily of why he chose pediatric medicine. The rambunctious youngsters kept him busy in the day while his wife was preparing for the school year.

“I actually thought I was going to be a pediatrician when I first started,” he said. “It was a long road to get to where I am. One, kids are just more interesting to me. You have to do more legwork — they are not going to just tell you all their symptoms. The other thing is that you are always going to get a lot of smiles in your day.”

A child’s visual cortex is developing until 7 or 8 years old, he said, making pediatric ophthamology a dynamic field in his opinion.

But for his daughter, Kaylin, there’s nothing else she would want to do. Becoming a doctor is in her future, or in her words, the present.

“I’m already a doctor like my daddy,” she said.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.