I am talking about the OD who hires all untrained, uncertified staff, and does not work under any RO or COA.
I am talking about the OD who hires all untrained, uncertified staff, and does not work under any RO or COA.
They can than work under the OD but the OD has to allow time for this in his schedule...unfortunatly, not all of them do this.:cheers:
Five (5) years of experience and these five (5) colleagues know as much as those holding a 'Certificate'? I seriously doubt it.
I assume you mean 'Certificate' as from an opticianry school. I wonder if they could explain prism to a patient. What about bicentric grinding (slab-off). Can they design an iseikonic lens, or even know what an isekonic lens is? What about the effect to a patient of a change in base curve? etc,etc.
A credential implies knowledge. A COA is a good start, but in my very biased view a Certificate or Diploma from an formal opticainry program is much better than any distance-learning (correspondence) course.:)
There are many of those issues that even certified Opticians and optometrist for that matter are uncomfortable with and would reach for a text book,a lab technician or a collegue. In the same manner, a coa who is not comfortable with any situation would just ask me the question and get the answer. I do not have all the answers even with 8 years of university and 10 years of practical learning. But I have the integrity to look it up, ask collegues in other offices, ask the advice of my trusted technician at Zeiss or ask optiboard for some imput. Not knowing all the answers is not the problem, pretending to know them is a much bigger issue. Again it comes back to customer service. I have had too many patients come back from opticals with very poor products. Does this mean the optician did not know what he was doing. He has a certificate. He must know what he is doing. Then what is the problem? Lack of integrity!!! An this can be found anywhere. So...the problem is not COAs in my mind but a lack of integrity in the optometrist supervising these COAs if a problem exists and I think it is a very small percentage of doctors who have a lack of integrity. Just MHO though!
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