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I often say that opticians are their own worst enemies.
Every so often they prove me 100% right…
I am not big on this blogging thing and you all know the saying about opinions, however, every once in awhile some thing comes across my desk that just makes me say, “What?”
I like to think of myself as being part of the modern age of opticianry. That age being the period after the introduction of CR-39 and the switch from opticianry being a care based field to a fashion-based field.
T
his is true if you consider yourself a frame stylist only. Though fashion has become a more dominate theme the last 40 years, the optics still need to be there. People don't wear glasses to look good, they wear them to see. In fact they wouldn't wear them at all if they weren't needed. You not only need a fashion sense but also knowledge of optics, products and solutions to visual tasks along with troubleshooting skills (optical knowledge).
How can it be that after forty plus years in the modern age of opticianry we are still holding public forums at events as large and as important as Vision Expo and be asking these questions?
Let us start with the last question listed as a bullet point, “How do we build respect for the practice of opticianry?” The answer is a simple one, “You don’t.” At least not until you get answers and results for the preceding questions!
Bullet point one: “Should opticianry have national licensing or certification?”
Are you kidding me?
Why isn’t the question, “After forty years why doesn’t opticianry have national recognition and who is to blame?” The answer to that question is, we don’t because we are still asking the first question starting with, “should” instead of the second one asking why we don’t already have it.
Keep in mind that even optometry and medical (Dr's) don't have reciprocity from state to state. You must take each states own exam to practice there. We (opticians) don't even have licensure in most states. Why? quite frankly is that the moneyed part of our industry doesn't support it, but represses it. They enjoy the added profits by keeping salaries down.
We don’t have national recognition because as a profession we are lazy and complacent. Look at any opticianry related site and all you see are the same people making all the contributions. The “gurus” of our profession are out of touch with the industry and out of touch with why we are stuck where we are. Until some fresh blood steps up to the plate and shakes things up we will still be seeing seminars like this one, asking the same old inappropriate questions, popping up at Vision Expo 2021.
I agree with your first sentence, I would call it apathy. Apathy from constantly running into brick walls when it comes to expansion of scope of practice. (Even simple licensure)
Let us look at bullet point two: “Does it need uniform education and continuing education standards?”
Why isn’t the question, “After forty years why have we failed to bring about a uniform level of education?”
Once again, due to lack of "need" (i.e. getting a job). Without the "need" of education in most states why would someone go to school for 2 years to earn 10.50 an hour?
We don’t have a level of uniform education because the opticianry schools and education programs are not delivering what the industry wants. Opticianry schools, training programs and most of all, certification exams, need to provide experience in
sales, inventory management, insurance, basic dispensing skills, and business sense. We need to insist on students that have communication and computer skills above a fifth grade level! If you want an industry to support you, you need to supply that industry with what they need, just look at nursing as the prime example, why do you think that hospitals have nursing schools?
What NFOS schools don't provide this? They all do to my knowledge, but once again, these graduates are a small fraction of the nearly 80k opticians out there. Also keep in mind that many of those skills are not sought nor needed. For example look at LC, the largest employer of opticians. How many of their associates make those type of decision at the store level? Virtually none, it's decided by corporate. The vast majority of opticians are indians, not chiefs.
John, I love your website! I think it's a fantastic source of knowledge. But even you don't have any of these (highlighted) areas covered in your tutorials.
And the third bullet point: “How do we promote opticianry as a health care career to students?”
This one really makes me angry.
You are asking, “How?” when the answer is, “We don’t because it is not!”
Do you not think we are furthering the care of the patient?
This is where, as a profession, we make a mistake and why we will always be a second shelf product. Opticianry is about making money. We are NOT providing health care, that is the doctor’s job, not ours. We are in a optical practice to make it successful. If we are not doing that then we are a liability and do not deserve to be treated as a profession, as an important part of an industry or as being worthy of support and a living wage.
By the same token and logic, are not optometrist salesmen too? Have you looked at any recent optometry magazines? Are they discussing the latest ophthalmic techniques? The ones I see are all headlines on "capture rates" or "how to sell from the chair" or "how to escort and hand-off your patients to your dispensary". We are all trying to make money (unless someone's in this as a hobby) so we can continue to operate in a field we enjoy.
You want respect?
Earn it!
You want change
Stop sitting on your butt listening to the same old people say the same old things.
John Seegers
www.opticianworks.com
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Originally Posted by John@OWDC
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