Should ABO require an AS for certification?

[tmorse]

No matter what educational requirements are placed on ABO/NCLE credentials the fact remains that opticians belong to a unique category that cannot really be considered a "profession".

Professionals in a "profession" generally sell their time and knowledge base to the public but opticians as a rule donate their time to the public.


The mark-up on lenses, frames and extras are similar in nature to any retail shop. There is no "Dispensing Fee" charged for our knowledge such as in pharmacy. Indeed, frame adjustment and minor repairs are often done at no charge. Do you know any doctors or massage therapists or garage mechanics that give away their time?

In Canada, Doctor eyewear Rx mistakes are paid for by the retail opticial and his lab, rather than by the offending optometrist/ophthalmologist.


It strokes the ego to label oneselve a professional ina profession but I would submit that we must change the way we conduct ourselves in the marketplace.

So first things first...opticianry should bein a campaign that from this date forward, no more freebies. Professionals charge for their time and expertise and thereby claim "profession" status. We have yet to jump that hurdle.

[Alan W]

No question in my mind that an A.S. Degree is prerequisuite for certification.

Let's see . . .

John Doe, Certified by The American College of Brain Surgeons, medical degree pending!

It ain't going to happen.

How can a person get certified and not get a recognized education? Would someone please identify the allied health care profession that allows it? And, if so, does that profession provide a service that deals with the only sensory organ that is part of the brain? It isn't a toe, an ear, or anything I've learned about.

In a sense this swings right back to the status of the optician in general. Opticianry has allowed itself to be professionally compromised so long that it simply doesn't see itself getting any higher on the totem pole than a frame seller. Frankly, (I've been brutally accused of being an elitest in the past so here goes) an uneducated optical worker, or one who can't pass the finals at a two year degree conferring school ain't, and here it comes . . . an optician!
It has been 37 years since I got my degree as an optician. That's plenty of time for a ton of people to get smartened up. Anyone who didn't do so between 1968 and right now gets no respect from me unless he/she can pass the same exams I had to pass.

Oh, but, one may say . . . 50 years experience is the equiv.
OK . . . Take the final exams. Let's see how many pass them without attending the classes. That's the acid test of experience to me. If they pass them in the same ratio as the formal class attendees, then I'll concede.

It bugs me....really bugs me to see some individual study the manual that gets them to the ABO door but can't calculate vertical imbalance under fire, and then they say to the patient ...."You have to get used to it."
I also see that person as a breach of professional integrity as well as a genuine risk to the public, when he/she can't communicate critical technical issues to another professional, like the prescribing doctor, requesting an executive decision on a remake!

Am I alone thinking this way?

[jediron]

Alan: said
It has been 37 years since I got my degree as an optician. That's plenty of time for a ton of people to get smartened up. Anyone who didn't do so between 1968 and right now gets no respect from me unless he/she can pass the same exams I had to pass.

This is just my opinion but I think Alan if you had a majority of the people in the optical profession today have to take the tests you and I had to take I doubt if 50% would pass. I had to take 4 and half days of testing in N.Y. in 73.

National Lic. Great idea now what is the next step? We have had this discussion many times in the past and the one issue that never seems to resolve itself is: WHAT'S NEXT? I have seen this national issue come on this board for years now and nothing has been done. Apathy is rampant.
If you you want to get something done then lets get it done. The next step is critical. You have to settle on what is the next step and go to the second and third, so forth and so forth. Without getting to this we are all just whistling in the wind.


"When you look in a mirror you don't always see what you want to see"

[hcjilson]

Jediron,

Just out of curiosity, what took 4 1/2 to test? I do remember hearing horor stories about the NY exam but not a test lasting 4.5 days.Even physician's boards don't take that long. Thinking back on what was tested, how much of that was necessary to be a good optician?

hj

[wmcdonald]

States License professionals, the US Government typically does not. We may can achieve a national certification program that is acceptable to all parties, but never a national "license". Prior to any of that meaning a damn thing, we MUST get an education. Most Opticians do not know the powers of a lens in a meridian. I see it every time I lecture, which is a considerable amount. How can they analyze an Rx if we cannot understand basic Optics. I do not blame the Opticians, but all of us who stood by while the profession declined to nothing more than the "selling" of spectacles and contact lenses. We made a huge mistake when we separated the two main tasks performed by Opticians, spectacle and contact lens design and fitting into separate areas. I hear all the time the trem "contact lens fitter"...ugh! Do you hear Doctor of Optometry and contact lens fitter? NO. You get the point? Opticians do only 2 things...we need training in those areas in an academic setting before any license or certificatin will mean anything to anyone but us. I see many lectureres with this alphabet soup behind their names, and if it makes them feel better about themselves, them go for it. But as a profession, we must develop an educational system that can properly train our people, and prove our worth to those who employ us. Sorry for the venting, but I am passionate about improving Optician's opportunities. The future depends on what we do today.

[jediron]

hcjilson said:

Jediron,

Just out of curiosity, what took 4 1/2 to test? I do remember hearing horor stories about the NY exam but not a test lasting 4.5 days.Even physician's boards don't take that long. Thinking back on what was tested, how much of that was necessary to be a good optician?

Hcjilson we took two tests per day. Monday (I'm trying to remember it was awhile ago 1973) was Math in the morning and English in the afternoon. Tuesday was Geometric Optics in the morning and the afternoon was Contact lenses. Wed. was Physiology and Anatomy of the Eye. Afternoon was Lenses
Thurs. was morning only. Practical exam was made up of instruments like keratometer, lensometer which we had to identify and point out the different working parts then we had to identify different lenses such as ultex K, Ribbon segs ect. After that each instructor threw questions out at you and last but not the least we had to adjust a couple pair of glasses. One I remember was a Ronwin Shurset and the other was a Ronsir.
:bbg:
P.S. Each test was 100 questions you had to get at least a 70
on all tests to pass the boards. Out of my class of 1973. 95 from
Erie Community College took the test, 10 passed fron the June testing. You could not take the test again till Dec. and you did not find out you test results till 3 and half months later.
The New York city group fared no better, I believe they had 150
but I can't remember and I think they had 10-20 pass.

[hcjilson]

Thinking back on what was tested, how much of that was necessary to be a good optician?Ribbon segs and Ultex bifocals A & K have very little to do with the practice of opticianry today.Were one piece bifocals any better than fused? Who needs a ribbon seg today?.....who needed one 40 years ago? My point is that the length of a test has no relation to its validity.....although NY opticans have always maintained they were better!:D :D

I used to think so too until I had the privlidge of running a subsidiary of EBMeyrowitz and working with many fine NY opticians.Then I found that we all needed to know the same thing to do our jobs and they were no better (or worse) prepared than my MA staff, me included...and I was by no means the best optician on the staff.

What we should be talking about are ONE set of standards for all opticians that are valid today and will be valid in 40 years. Today that means an AS degree with final exams at the end of each semester, and one exam at the completion of the program which will test competency on the same plane.

What we have now is a mish mash. We still have states who say the practice is different in their state than it is in any other. This is IDIOCY! It is allowed to continue by those who would use their licensing laws to restrain trade in their own bailiwicks. Little by little, the states are beginning to come around to one way of thinking but I doubt I will live to see the day where a state like Florida will accept any other credentials without making the applicant jump through many unecessary hoops to practice there.

When a registation board chairman can tell me
with a straight face that PD's are taken differently in his state than in mine (absolute true story and it took place in front of another optiboard member who can verify it) I think we have a long way to travel. One of the things that will stop this cr*p from being diseminated is the adoption of an education reguirement which will be the same for ALL states.

I in no way mean to denigrate the NY state exam past or present but the fact remains that we all do the same thing, pretty much in the same manner and its about time that those in charge of credentialing got off their high horses and did something positive about upgrading this profession.

Sorry to be so long winded

hj

[jediron]

hcjilson said:
thinking back on what was tested, how much of that was necessary to be a good optician?Ribbon segs and Ultex bifocals A & K have very little to do with the practice of opticianry today.Were one piece bifocals any better than fused? Who needs a ribbon seg today?.....who needed one 40 years ago? My point is that the length of a test has no relation to its validity.....although NY opticans have always maintained they were better!

Hcjilson I never said I was better than anyone else. You asked me what testing I had to go through to get my degree and take the boards. The length of the test did have validity in testing our knowledge of the occupation we were going to enter. There are many times I had to fall back on my learning to figure out a slab off and many other things. The math and accounting I took has helped me every day. The accounting practices helped me in running a business. The Physiology and Anatomy of the eye helped me to understand the inner workings of the eye giving me a better understanding of why some people complain about certain aliments. It also gave me the confidence and skill to enter a profession that I am proud of. Maybe you just ran into Opticians from New York who did think they were better. But I learned a long time ago it's not how much you learn, it's what you learned and how you applly it to your profession and life. The last ingredient is to keep on learning. Just because I have a college degree has not stopped me from continuing to evolve and learn to be an even better Optician. Changes in lenses, frames and how to run your business, by selling glasses and contact lenses are all part of the learning process. I have not stopped learning and I hope I never do.

:bbg:

[hcjilson]

my remarks in this thread. I was trained by a NY optician who was working for my father way back in 1959-62. His name was Don Call and I later worked for him part time when he opened a shop in Amherst which was proof to me that he trusted what I learned:D :D

He instilled in my phsyche that NY Opticians were the best in the world! This opinion was held and promulgated by many I came into contact with in the early years. Also at that time EB Meyrowitz was considered to be the pinnacle of Opticians, followed closely by Montgomery Frost Llyods in Boston, and Wall and Ochs (sp) in Philadelphia.

The reputation of New York opticians was earned and well deserved. Let my state my premise a little differently by saying this instead.

"It came as somewhat of a shock to me to find out that I was just as good as they were"... but I KNEW I couldn't be that good because I still made the occasional dumb mistake....then I found out that we ALL do that.

Let me repeat-

I in no way mean to denigrate the NY state exam past or present but the fact remains that we all do the same thing, pretty much in the same manner and its about time that those in charge of credentialing got off their high horses and did something positive about upgrading this profession.