Hopefully, I will be able to shed some light on the OP's question. From a macroscopic view, audiology and optometry appear to parallel one another to a great extent. Neither is a physician in the traditional sense of the word and both are doctoring professions. Additionally, both have physician counterparts. However, there are drastic differences between the two fields in regards to history, education, roles, and pay. The differences begin with where and how long ago the fields began. Audiology is a far younger field having been formally born as the bastard love child of the Speech Pathology and Medicine during WWII. Traditionally, in the U.S., audiology has been closely allied with speech pathology in academic settings and to some extent in work settings. Up until recently, they were considered to be the same field even though separate training programs have been required fro several decades. I believe it is only recently because of technological advances and the transitoning to a doctoral entry-level field that the field has received much more attention. This brings us to how each field is educated. Optometry requires the traditional science oriented premed requirements whereas many audiology programs still requires prereqs in speech, language, and hearing. Many audiologists and program are attempting to transition to the science prereqs and distance but it is a very slow transition. Additionally, when comparing the two fields, the class size and # of schools is an issue. Class sizes in audiology range between 5 and 12 whereas OD programs have significantly more students. There are far too many programs in audiology (40+?) to guarantee a uniform education commensurate with the singe professional degree designator, AuD. This, hopefully, will change with time. As far as gender, females currently dominate the current student population at a ratio somewhere around 8:1 or so. The scope of practice for audiology centers more around diagnostics and non-medical rehabilitation for disorders of hearing and balance. Although autonomy is increasing, I would not expect prescriptive rights at any time in the next decade. It hasnt even been advocated for by anyone in the field. At present, the major issue is direct access to Medicare recipients. Additionally, pay is not commensurate with years of education. Salaries usually range from 45 k to 65 k. Of course, owning one's own practice makes the sky the limit. Private practice seems to be easier in audiology than it is in optometry because of far fewer corporately owned dispensing facilities (e.g., Lenscrafters vs. Miracle Ear). However, hearing instrument dispensers (the hearing version of the optician) still dispense roughly half of the hearing aids in the U.S. This is an issue that may not change in the near future as the advances in technology have decreased the amount of skill needed in programming hearing aids. On a more positive note, growing areas in audiology include vestibular diagnostics and rehabilitation, industrial audiology, cochlear implant programming, and intraoperative monitoring. The field is open for great minds to advance it. There is plenty of room for researchers and they are greatly sought after as a shortage has been apparent for quite some time. Entepeneurs will find audiology ripe for the picking but not without its roadblocks. Hope this was of some use.
