If medicine has board certification, why can't optometry? It's beneficial to become board certified because then you can separate yourself from those are unable to meet those qualifications.
You don't seem to understand what true board certification denotes. In fields that have "real" board certification, a practitioner must go through some extensive, post credential training in order to be eligible to sit for the BC process. If you're a dentist, and you want to become a Board Certified orthodontist, you can't just get up one day and say, "I"m going to go take a written exam and become board certified." You have to go do a residency in orthodontics, get your certificate or MS from that program, add it to your DMD/DDS, complete some other requirements, and viola, you're eligible to sit for the BC exam. You're then a SPECIALIST, who can no longer practice general dentistry, as long as you hold yourself out as a specialist.
Optometry is different. We have ZERO specialties. Our residencies do not lead to specialty practice, and there is basically no way to survive as an OD, without doing general practice optometry. Because of this, we will NEVER have specialties in the way that medicine, dentistry, veterinary has them. So, to create a BC system that basically attempts to make us look like the cool guys, is a pathetic display of the little brother syndrome, in which the little kid puts on his big brothers football jersey and runs around trying to look like his idol. We look pathetic when we do this, and it only diminishes the profession period. If you want to be a board certified medical specialist in something, go to medical school, go to dental school, go to veterinary school, go to podiatry school, but dont go to optometry school. Just because you WANT optometry to be a certain way, doesnt mean it will be or is that way.
Optometric BC does NOT denote a higher level of competence, as it does in other fields. It does not allow you to hold yourself out above your peers. In fact, the law states that practitioners are not permitted to hold themselves out as being more highly trained than their non-BC peers. The courts were brought in to decide whether or not the public was being deceived by our BC label, since most would assume that our BCd optometrists are comparable to a BCd surgeon or other MD specialist. They incorrectly decided that the public is not deceived, although they did come out and state that pretty much any certification by any board allows for the title of Board Certified. So, in essence, every OD whos passed the NBEO (the National BOARD of Optometry), is Board Certified by the NBEO. We can all now say that we're "Board Certified."
Its a complete farce, designed to drum up revenue for the ABO (and the ailing AOA). The people that stand to gain from BC (ABO/AOA) have created a panic that is unfounded. "Yo'll need BC to be on medical panels!!" FALSE: no panel has ever required BC for ODs. "We need to keep up with other professions!" FALSE: we don't. If you want to look like an MD, go to medical school.
Its up to you, though. If you want to go out and commit to thousands upon thousands of dollars to get and maintain the false credential, more power to you. Youll basically be proving that you can pass the same test you already passed when you graduate from optometry school, and youll be allowed to pay several thousand dollars to do so. Then youll be allowed to pay more money every year to prove that you still know the information that youve already proven you know
..twice.
Its a joke and Im embarrassed for the profession because of it. It makes us look ridiculous.
