Optometry school faculty

[eyeguy91]

I'm currently a second year intern at UIWRSO. One thing I'm noticing more is many of the faculty at my school almost disparaging ophthalmology. Many times faculty members have told stories about patients that came to them from an ophthalmologist's care and how the ophthalmologist "didn't really know what they were doing". I find this bothersome because it really feels like they are trying to put optometry above ophthalmology in a sense. Note all doctors are good, but these stories have been specifically about patients who came from ophthalmology. In my opinion, optometry has a wonderful place as a primary healthcare position that can help in many ways INCLUDING referring patients to the correct specialist when something is outside the scope of our care. I guess I'm just bothered that they aren't stressing the importance of optometry and ophthalmology working together to achieve the best outcomes for all patients. They seem to push the notion that optometry can fix just about anything and all ophthalmology wants to do is perform surgery. Long story short, I feel a lot of the faculty at my school have very large egos and an absurdly high sense of importance in patient care. The vibe I get from them is, "we can fix it you don't need ophthalmology", and it's really starting to bother me to the point where I dislike the professors and any opinions they have. The fact that I always keep in my head is ophthalmology can do EVERYTHING an optometrist can, but an optometrist CANNOT do everything an ophthalmologist can. The quicker we understand and accept that going into the profession the better off we and all our patients will be. It's not their job to falsely inflate student's expectations, it's their job to help the students understand where and when they can provide help and how they can make sure patients are getting the absolute best care they need. If surgery is the best option, then teach that!

Don't get me wrong, I chose optometry for a reason and I really love it. I'm just asking other optometry students/graduates experiences with their faculty and how they seemed to view ophthalmology?

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[pnw256]

I'm a 3rd year. While it might not be the most professional thing I think there's some basis to what they say.

Coming out of med school, the ones who match into ophthalmology probably have some research background and perhaps they picked ophthalmology as an elective rotation site. They don't have that much knowledge on eyes apart from the knowledge they picked up to that point. Because so many go into disease and surgery - and btw are excellent at doing what they do - sometimes they don't know much about other aspects of eye care (even though I do hear they pretty much learn everything the first year or two of their residencies regardless of specialty) or even considering the health of an eye in a "holistic" way. For example, GENERALLY speaking, I think there are more optometrists who have a better grasp on BV, low vision, and pediatrics in terms of meeting the patients' refractive needs.

 

[dukehoops]

I'm a 3rd year. While it might not be the most professional thing I think there's some basis to what they say.

Coming out of med school, the ones who match into ophthalmology probably have some research background and perhaps they picked ophthalmology as an elective rotation site. They don't have that much knowledge on eyes apart from the knowledge they picked up to that point. Because so many go into disease and surgery - and btw are excellent at doing what they do - sometimes they don't know much about other aspects of eye care (even though I do hear they pretty much learn everything the first year or two of their residencies regardless of specialty) or even considering the health of an eye in a "holistic" way. For example, GENERALLY speaking, I think there are more optometrists who have a better grasp on BV, low vision, and pediatrics in terms of meeting the patients' refractive needs.

Optometrists are typically better in refraction. OMDs learn a lot more than ODs and their depth of knowledge is a lot greater. OMDs have to read the basic science series (12 texts). They read one book every month for 3 years. They get tested every April on the entire series.

 

[FinnMac]

Somewhere buried in the archives is a article written by a NSUOCO Professor who is an ophthalmologists, and a optometrist. It's not just refractions.

 

[Optogal]

I'm currently a second year intern at UIWRSO. One thing I'm noticing more is many of the faculty at my school almost disparaging ophthalmology. Many times faculty members have told stories about patients that came to them from an ophthalmologist's care and how the ophthalmologist "didn't really know what they were doing". I find this bothersome because it really feels like they are trying to put optometry above ophthalmology in a sense. Note all doctors are good, but these stories have been specifically about patients who came from ophthalmology. In my opinion, optometry has a wonderful place as a primary healthcare position that can help in many ways INCLUDING referring patients to the correct specialist when something is outside the scope of our care. I guess I'm just bothered that they aren't stressing the importance of optometry and ophthalmology working together to achieve the best outcomes for all patients. They seem to push the notion that optometry can fix just about anything and all ophthalmology wants to do is perform surgery. Long story short, I feel a lot of the faculty at my school have very large egos and an absurdly high sense of importance in patient care. The vibe I get from them is, "we can fix it you don't need ophthalmology", and it's really starting to bother me to the point where I dislike the professors and any opinions they have. The fact that I always keep in my head is ophthalmology can do EVERYTHING an optometrist can, but an optometrist CANNOT do everything an ophthalmologist can. The quicker we understand and accept that going into the profession the better off we and all our patients will be. It's not their job to falsely inflate student's expectations, it's their job to help the students understand where and when they can provide help and how they can make sure patients are getting the absolute best care they need. If surgery is the best option, then teach that!

Don't get me wrong, I chose optometry for a reason and I really love it. I'm just asking other optometry students/graduates experiences with their faculty and how they seemed to view ophthalmology?

Sorry. Your perspective of optometry is too narrow. Your perspective of ophthalmology is too broad.

You get good at what you do a lot. Optometry is good at refraction, problem solving vision/glasses/CLs etc., little eye aches and pains, etc. We spend 20-25 mins per patient. OMDs are excellent at dealing with pathology, and their visits average maybe 3-5 mins. There are some ODs who are excellent at pathology but on average, the average OMD sees much more pathology so their ability in pathology is >>> ODs. However, that patient who just got glasses and doesn't really feel they are bang on, the OD is much better at fixig that. It's what we do EVERY DAY WITH EVERY PATIENT. I'm not sure if an ophthalmologist knows how to use a manual lensometer. If they don't (and they probably don't), how are they able to trouble-shoot glasses that a patient is unhappy with? It's like an OD saying, because they passed their TMOD, they can do eye pathology as well as an OMD. It's just not realistic. I definitely am better at pathology than when I first graduated, but hell no I can't hold a candle to a competent OMD. So does that mean OMDs >>> ODs? NO. Why? Because how many people wear glasses? How many people, prior to cataract surgery, need eye surgery? We are good at what we do and our services serve a significant need. There's also other things like BV, low vision, etc. that the other poster mentioned.

There is overlap between ODs and OMDs but OMDs do not OVERLAP ODs. Just as I would say a really well-trained and knowledgeable optician will be skilled at things in ways the average OD is not. I don't touch glasses if I'm working with an experienced optician, nor should an OMD. Everyone has their role and area of expertise, and they don't overlap exactly or even particularly closely.

 

[Optogal]

Your other point - about big egos at optom school. I saw the same thing when I went to school too. There are some egotistical ODs in academia and clinical practice. Odd, the most vocal anti-OMD (and anti-GP) OD at my school was probably the least talented OD (in terms of research profile, clinical skills, and social skills). By and large, there wasn't any anti-OMD sentiment expressed by the vast majority of faculty. But I did encounter 1 very vocal, and there was probably one or two other not-vocal ones but I'm not remembering those right now.

 

[someguy313]

Sorry. Your perspective of optometry is too narrow. Your perspective of ophthalmology is too broad.

You get good at what you do a lot. Optometry is good at refraction, problem solving vision/glasses/CLs etc., little eye aches and pains, etc. We spend 20-25 mins per patient. OMDs are excellent at dealing with pathology, and their visits average maybe 3-5 mins. There are some ODs who are excellent at pathology but on average, the average OMD sees much more pathology so their ability in pathology is >>> ODs. However, that patient who just got glasses and doesn't really feel they are bang on, the OD is much better at fixig that. It's what we do EVERY DAY WITH EVERY PATIENT. I'm not sure if an ophthalmologist knows how to use a manual lensometer. If they don't (and they probably don't), how are they able to trouble-shoot glasses that a patient is unhappy with? It's like an OD saying, because they passed their TMOD, they can do eye pathology as well as an OMD. It's just not realistic. I definitely am better at pathology than when I first graduated, but hell no I can't hold a candle to a competent OMD. So does that mean OMDs >>> ODs? NO. Why? Because how many people wear glasses? How many people, prior to cataract surgery, need eye surgery? We are good at what we do and our services serve a significant need. There's also other things like BV, low vision, etc. that the other poster mentioned.

There is overlap between ODs and OMDs but OMDs do not OVERLAP ODs. Just as I would say a really well-trained and knowledgeable optician will be skilled at things in ways the average OD is not. I don't touch glasses if I'm working with an experienced optician, nor should an OMD. Everyone has their role and area of expertise, and they don't overlap exactly or even particularly closely.

I agree 110%. To say an ophthalmologist can do everything an optometrist can do is simply not true. Sure, a lot of things that optometrists can do falls under their scope of practice, but in real life it plays out quite differently. My current externship site is a large OD/OMD practice, and the techs do 90% of the actual work-up for the patient, including refraction and GAT. OMD's definitely hold a great deal of knowledge in their specific subsets (cornea, retina, glaucoma, etc). but for a lot of them, anything even mildly beyond their highly specialized niches they will absolutely refer out or relegate to one of the techs/residents/externs to do. But to be fair, they don't need to know anything beyond their subspecialty. If you're a cornea surgeon you don't gotta worry about how to do a PPV with membrane peel. If you're a retinal surgeon you don't gotta worry about how to perform a trabeculectomy. And if you're any type of OMD you're probably not fitting contacts or messing with anything peds/BV/VT-related.

Now, to address OP's sentiment, I definitely agree that it's bad to talk smack about OMD's when as OD's we usually compliment each other pretty well to provide amazing care for our patients. My school actually had us occasionally work alongside OMD's our 3rd and 4th year so I never had any beef with them. On the contrary, I have a deep level of respect for what they do and how good they are at it. All I'm saying is that it's far too reductive to say an OMD can do everything an OD can because they can't, and that's perfectly fine. We got our roles to play, and when we work together we can do amazing things.