Where we dragged behind as OPTOMETRISTS?

VISION CLUB

Abstract

I respect all the professions; they are equally creditable and are integral parts of human life. Just like when one block is removed from a wall—the wall falls; one health profession lacking would lead to fall of human health, holistically. It’s an optometrist speaking about the scenario we are having in Nepal in regard of this field called optometry.

It’s already been a two decades passed since we started saying optometry is a novice profession. Why is it that the word novice still comes as a pre-word in our profession then? Just to remind: a decade alone is—few days altered—3600 days or 10 years. The graduates set their feet in the market since 2001. Come now, in each batch, a total of 67 students get enrolled in Bachelor of optometry (and/or vision science) course from the whole country, and many go to neighboring countries. 

To start with

Let me take you on a cruise to quite similar profession: dentistry. The new graduates of dentistry land on a well recognized pre-set platform of dentistry as ‘dentists’ soon as they graduate. They have already made it. These days everybody knows who a dentist is. One seeks a dentist if s/he has minor toothache. Like ours, their syllabus too is of four academic years, with parallel clinical exposure. We have too full clinical experiences as our curriculum demands. I am not disparaging any other profession—here I am just drawing out an analogy. So, when is it then hoi polloi come asking for an optometrist to test their eye sight or power?

It’s up to us when.

Plain fact: we are not medical doctors, period.

There remain different schools of thought. One group opts for writing doctor as a prefix in the name. Again, I am not presenting a counter-opinion, it might be better to help flourish an identity to a new height, because, it has been seen time and again, nobody gives you a thought of regard when you are not supposed to be a doctor—checking their eyes. Doctor or not, why not present ourselves to them as an OPTOMETRIST first? It’s rather confounding to general people when we try to mingle our very own profession into any other. As an optometrist, I am becoming prouder day by day, aren’t we all?

Money matters.

Where there is money there is better than the good. If we are reluctant into investing money we have into business, then it is high probable a fact that we continue to make money for whoever s/he may be. Result: we continue to be enslaved to augment the goodwill for others—unfortunately we are just a media here for them to get richer and wider. Motto: be it small, own your work, fully and happily.   

Effective Collaboration –a need.

We all have our own qualities, we are so attached to each other by profession all the way back where we started—most of all we, each of us, ophthalmologist, optometrist, ophthalmic assistant, optician, trained eye worker are unexpendable from the health system. Invariably if not, there is need that we unite for better not forgetting who stands where and who is capable of what. The beneficiary is, ultimately, our own nation, and credit goes to us, as per our contribution. It may come as a chain of referral system, consolidating practice modality or starting to liaison up for optical act with well defined role. 

Drop the name where possible.

In our entrepreneurial involvement, as a sole proprietor or shareholder, we have to blend the word optometry somewhere. In clinic or an outlet with refraction services or where you are engaged try to use optometry the word—in the banners, hoarding board, letter pads, etc. If an outsider does not know what this word means, it might raise his/her curiosity to understand it further.

Exploring More

The corporate involvement of Optometrists is a must for the overall development of optical business. We should explore the opportunities to pull big multinational corporate houses in Nepal and make the consumers more brand-conscious. 
In the context of unstoppable ever-increasing diaspora of competent optometrists, the net burden per optometrist residing in the country in the walk of the recognition road has too been increasing. While some few optometrists from Nepal have arisen to the international forefront, have owned scholarships in the world-class institutions—optometry by profession is still lying under the veils of obscurity in our own country. A bridging component between Nepalese optometrists worldwide has been thought for long, even though Nepalese Association of Optometrists (NAO) is doing a great deal, still continuous communication and professional knowledge sharing is wanting. In days like World Health Day or World Sight Day or World Optometry Day, we can step up levels more than we really are doing. There are funding opportunities galore, just we need are verves and ideas. While optometrists in foreign lands can have inputs, we also have equal responsibilities to shoulder up the cause—after all, by work can we rise high than by mere shouts. Admittedly, we have been organizing continue optometry education (COE), have we not forgotten something that can be done in wide journalistic showground to demonstrate our people who we are and what we do? Period, and ponder.     

Researching

Research is the backbone of every profession, let alone ours. While research in academic core is unequivocally praiseworthy, but researching about the role of optometrists in socio-economic aspect, in reducing burden of blindness, or in the vantage point of SDG or Global Action Plan is more than meaningful. It adds up to open the third-eye to the policy makers or government officials that optometry should be incorporated somehow into the governmental mechanism.

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