Ontario ODs get access to therapeutics

[Ory]

It's been a long time coming, but Ontario optometrists can now prescribe medications for most eye diseases now.

http://www.nationalpost.com/Regulati...845/story.html

[optical maven]

Tell Geoff Briede that now we are real doctors

[eyemanflying]

Tell Geoff Briede that now we are real doctors

LOL, and that he is still not...

[uncut]

Tell Geoff Briede that now we are real doctors

Are you sayin' you'all weren't real before?

Perhaps.....virtual....perhaps...incomplete?

[NorthStar]

This should give you the back story (this was posted in 2004 on the Ontario Opticians' Associatation bulletin board and remained for years until the website renovation; this was a response to a letter by optometrist Dr. Brent Caswell regarding Mr. Briede's statements regarding the profession of optometry) Note that he purposely refers to the optometrist as "Mr." Fortunately this is in the past, and ECP's will move forward now that regulations regarding cooperation will finally be changed:

http://www.ontario-opticians.com/Bul...B__Caswell.pdf

Here it is in full, since the cached version may soon be gone:

Hello All,
I’ve arranged for this to be posted to our bulletin board after reading Brent Caswell’s
posting here.
Thank you for your thoughts, Mr. Caswell. You say you are alarmed at my
“misconceptions” regarding optometrists; I find your calling them misconceptions to be
no great surprise, and quite typical. However, it is not a “misconception” to have a
different opinion, Sir - it is an entrenched right in a free society.
I certainly do have different opinions regarding optometrists than many optometrists
would have me hold. As a result, I also have come to many different conclusions
regarding the profession of the optometrist - even though they may not be popular among
the optometrists.
I do not apologize and shall continue to hold with my opinions.
Also, I fail to see what is “derogatory” in any of what I’ve written so far.
I do not call into question the knowledge or training of the optometrist; I agree that it is
an impressive and admirable body of knowledge to be mastered. What I do call into
question, however, is the assumption that once said studies are complete, that the
optometrist should then be referred to as an “

eye doctor”.
You say you are an optometrist living outside of Ontario, so perhaps you are unaware of
the massive advertising - or propaganda - campaign that Ontario optometrists have, and
are presently, waging here. This propaganda (or advertising) takes great pains to push to
the forefront the idea that an optometrist is in every way an “eye doctor”, while the
ophthalmologist is exclusively an “eye surgeon”. (I’ve often wondered what the
consulting or non-surgical ophthalmologist thinks of being heaped-in among a group of
non-medical practitioners calling themselves “eye doctors”.) So successful is this
propaganda campaign with the general public that people often go to an optometrist’s
office with their eye injuries expecting the optometrist to perform a medical procedure or
intervention. Herein lays the danger of allowing non-medical practitioners to refer to
themselves as “doctors”.
I don’t blame the individual optometrist for this pitiable need to be referred to as an “eye
doctor”; it is the result of years of propaganda that optometry schools inculcate their
students with.
However, a technician is what an optometrist is; otherwise he/she would be treating -
with medications and/or surgery - the diseases and injuries that present themselves during
their daily practice. This is not derogatory nor is it an opinion; it is a factual statement.
Relating to this forum what your local ophthalmologist instructs his medical colleagues to
do before patients are referred to him in no way convinces me that an optometrist is
indeed an “eye doctor”. Rather, it strikes me as something a busy doctor does everyday;
he utilizes the technicians at his disposal to eliminate, as much as possible, wasted time
and duplicated effort. My business partner (an M.D.) halves his time between our shared
vision clinic and his general practice; when he is at his general practice and a walk-in (or
referral from the hospital) “emergency” comes into the vision clinic he doesn’t drop
everything and run over, until the staff R.N. (another proud technician) or myself has
seen them, and agrees that medical intervention is necessary and emergent. Does this
make me, or the nurse, an “eye doctor”? It certainly does not – it shows us only to be
competent and useful technicians.
Regarding your stated confusion on what I think about dentists, I think it quite natural,
since I never once mentioned this subject. To clear up any “misconceptions” you
imagine I might have in this area, I will state categorically that you are totally off-base
here. How can you compare an optometrist with a professional that orders and reads xrays,
who makes clinical decisions based on these readings? …with a practitioner who
then acts upon these decisions and using hypodermic syringes or gas masks, inundates the
human body with prescription medications and then proceeds to do surgery on said
human body? Dentists are also empowered to write prescriptions for oral medications,
antibiotics and analgesics, etcetera.
Where do you get this idea that dentists don’t practice medicine? If the above isn’t the
practice of medicine, then I would be very much interested in your opinion of what does

constitute medical practice.
In Ontario, the

only thing an optometrist is permitted to prescribe is corrective lenses.
How does this make an optometrist an “eye doctor”? One might stretch the point and
call an optometrist a “spectacle doctor” – but that would be absurd. In Europe, such
practitioners are referred to as “refracting opticians” or “master opticians” – not “eye
doctors” – this honorific is reserved for medical practitioners - physicians and surgeons.
If an Ontario optometrist performs perimetry, or computerized visual field testing, he/she
is only allowed to bill for the technical component, and is not considered qualified to
interpret the results, and although he/she may know what the results mean – like an x-ray
technician often knows what x-ray results mean – they are certainly not permitted to bill
for the professional component. This interpretation must and should be done only by a
medical doctor.
I say again: if optometrists in Ontario were in fact “eye doctors” then they would be
treating with medications and/or surgery those diseases and pathologies that are
uncovered during their screening processes and examinations, instead of trying to
bulldoze through parliament legislation which would grant them the right to practice
medicine.
I’m going to mention here another of my opinions, even at the risk of being told that I
labour under misconceptions by the Pompous.
I don’t think that health care – be it funded publicly or privately – has any room for what
many call “phoney doctors” - by which they mean: non-medically trained and/or
qualified health care practitioners who nevertheless, and in spite of these facts, call
themselves “doctors”.
This practice is confusing to the Lay person - and potentially dangerous as well.
If a collection of optometrists or history professors want to sit around a conference table
referring to each other as “Dr. This” and “Dr. That” among themselves and in private...
well, it might seem laughable, but it doesn’t do anybody any harm. However, it is my
belief that allowing non-medically trained professionals to operate within the health care
field while erecting “shingles” and signs referring to themselves as “doctors” has
already, and will continue to, harm and confuse the public.

G.S. Briedé, R.O.

[eyemanflying]

I can say that his past opinions and comments (borderline rhetoric) speak mostly for himself and not the majority of Ontario Opticians.

[uncut]

I can say that his past opinions and comments (borderline rhetoric) speak mostly for himself and not the majority of Ontario Opticians.

That's your opinion. I don't know enough about the guy.....did he present himself as representing any group of opticians?

[eyemanflying]

That's your opinion. I don't know enough about the guy.....did he present himself as representing any group of opticians?

Yes, on many occasions.

[DragonLensmanWV]

Man, what a jerk! Pitiable, he is.:bbg:

[odmd]

LOL, and that he is still not...

wow this bredie chap really got to you huh,,,,, 7 years on since he wrote it,,,,, easily twice that since ontario ods began their tpa campaign,,,,, you guys finally get it and all you've got to say is a na na nana na to some mouthy optician,,,,, grow up you're embarrassing me,,,,, real pros aren't you?,,,,, that tirade of his was probably born of an encounter with an equally mature od,,,,,should get him to write some propaganda for the oma since maven and you remembered it for 7 years, he must be good or correct or both

*YAWN*

[aspherix]

Sounds like someone who didn't get into optometry school and is bitter about being called Mister.

[chip anderson]

Don't know bout the "Real Doctor" status but it shows they have a lot of money an political influence.
Odd that's a substitute for medical school though.

[AnotherOD]

Don't know bout the "Real Doctor" status but it shows they have a lot of money an political influence.
Odd that's a substitute for medical school though.

Speaking of medical school, I know boatloads of chaps who went through it but don't know the first thing about the eye.

I'd venture to guess they know even less about the eye than you do.

But them are the doctors and you ain't.

So it's about money and political influence for them med school folks too.

[ex-optician]

I do not understand what all the fuss is about. We have a similar situation with pharmacists. They have the knowledge to identify and prescribe medication for common ailments yet are restricted from doing so. I have had poison ivy rashes several times in my life. The pharmacist wanted to give me a stronger topical steroid cream but couldn't. I had to go to the GP to get a rx and return. The cost to the health care system and the time involved was a complete waste. I trust that optometrists have the training to refer more serious matters requiring an rx to an ophthalmologist and by doing so can help to reduce costs to the health care system.

[NorthStar]

Tell Geoff Briede that now we are real doctors

Believe it or not Mr. Briede is now service manager for Axis Medical (merger of Pacific Medical/B&H/Precision Ophthalmic). Their main target market is selling ophthalmic equipment to optometrists! I wonder if he still pointedly refers to OD's as "Mister" in his new job...

[LandLord]

Believe it or not Mr. Briede is now service manager for Axis Medical (merger of Pacific Medical/B&H/Precision Ophthalmic). Their main target market is selling ophthalmic equipment to optometrists! I wonder if he still pointedly refers to OD's as "Mister" in his new job...

now THAT is funny!