I'm a first-year optometry student, so this is what I've heard from currently-practicing ODs. I'm going to paint in broad strokes; obviously there are individuals who are breaking all of these generalizations.
As an employee in a chain, you'll work long hours (9a-9p), weekends, and holidays. However, you make good money (short-term) and have no extra duties; you're done when you're done. Easy to find in large cities.
You may or may not work long hours. I've done commercial work and it doesn't mean 9 - 9. You can still work an 8 hour shift as usual.
You may even work 5 days per week. Depends on the contract.
As an employee in a multi-doctor private office, you'll work fewer hours (9a-5p), weekends, and holidays (they're usually split between the doctors). You'll make decent short-term money. More difficult to find in large cities. Possible chance of associateship and buying out the owner.
More difficult to find in large cities??? Why? Should be far easier to find in big cities. Small towns generally do not have group OD practices.
As an owner, you'll work horrifically-long hours and make no money to begin with. If you manage the place well, though, you'll gradually work shorter hours and make more money. In the beginning, if you open cold, you'll have no patients, so you're probably going to have to subsidize your income by working elsewhere part-time. The big personal benefit is control; once you get rolling, you can work when you want and practice how you want. The big monetary payoff is equity; you can sell the business when you're ready to retire. There are much bigger risks at the beginning and end for this one; you need to take out a huge loan to start and you might make a ton of money at the end, but it all depends on you. Buying out a private practice would fit this scheme as well. All but impossible to find in large cities; you have to be in towns to pull this off.
You would only make no money to begin with if you open cold. That's why I always suggest buying a practice so you have instant income. I bought a practice myself and yes, I've worked long hours in the beginning but I can say that I only see patients 3.5 days out of the week now after 3 years.
Again, why the small towns? You can find opportunities everywhere. I'm in the Hartford metropolitan area--1 million population.
the biggest benefit as you say is control--sort of. kind of hard to control employees many times!
So, if you want to just go home at the end of the day and make decent money, work for someone. If you own a practice, you actually have to manage it and deal with the gigantic business loans on top of your school loans. However, you won't make as much money in the long run, especially when you retire; instead of selling your business for a (hopefully) huge gain, you'll simply have 0 income.
There is nothing wrong with working for someone else. it's a choice and it's not necessarily a bad one. some people just don't like the idea of managing. of course you have to be comfortable with taking orders from someone else and have an income which probably won't exceed your practice's business owner, but hey, nothing wrong with that.
there may come a time when doctors can't sell their practices since private practice may be on it's way out. just make as much money as you can while you can and don't worry about selling. if you can sell, more gravy for you.
Some transitions are fairly easy, such as employee to eventually buying out the owner, especially if you go into the situation with both parties planning for that eventually. Others are extremely difficult, such as chain to private practice, which is almost impossible. It's easier to go from loans from school and just add on business loans immediately after graduation than pay off school loans and then have to go back into debt when you're supporting a house, cars, spouse, kids, etc 5-10 years after you're done with school. I only know a few people who have worked chain for 5 years and then opened their own business, and they were steel-willed and absolutely knew they were going to quit after 5 years of working for someone else.
If a certain mode of practice was all benefit, no drawbacks, everybody would be doing it; you have to balance the pros and cons of each and decide which works best for you.
As for optometry school all together; what other options would you consider? Another professional school, graduate school, working your way up the corporate ladder, entrepreneur... Will any of them be any better? Again, it's all about balancing benefits and drawbacks.
Some of the best advice I've received is figure out what you want to look back upon when you retire and work towards that.
