As an OD that is hoping to go on to medical school (just received MCAT scores, 29S, not bad for old man) I can see both sides of this argument. The OMDs that are the busiest in my area, metropolitan, are the ones that embrace ODs and willingly co-manage surgical/disease patients. We feed their practices to the point they actually employ residency trained optometrists to aid in the work load.
With that being said, not me nor my colleagues feel that we should be doing surgery, and we all have residency training behind us (optometry residency, which by no means am I implying is as difficult or as comprehensive as an ophthalmology residency). As I have stated before on this site, I have lectured to ODs in Oklahoma and VERY FEW exercise their laser privileges.
I find both futureCTdoc and Oculomotors comments a little on the naive side. As futureCTdoc has stated on an earlier post, his father is a retina specialist in Florida. Growing up in a household with an OMD battling the evil ODs in a state that is over saturated with OMDs already has more than likely skewed his view as to the training we receive. I had a retina specialist in one of my VA rotations during my fourth year of optom school ask me if I knew how to use a 90D lens for fundoscopy, his father was an OD. This just shows how far our training has come is such a short amount of time, while MD training has remained relatively the same for decades. I am not arguing that there is anything wrong with MD training, just pointing out that not much as changed in the way of training. Sure, most allopathic programs are now switching to a systems based module, but the didactic, clinical, internship, residency, fellowship flow pattern has remaind static. I am assuming that he is not following in his father's footsteps based on his screen name, I wish you the best in rads, I myself do not think I will be pursuing ophtho either. By the way, NOVA has outstanding facilities, I had the opportunity to tour the school back in 1998.
As for Oculomotor. I know you are pumped and feel like you will be taking over the world one pathology case at a time. Just not so. Even if you are practicing in a very rural setting, which is just about the only ODs I know that have a large pathology practice, your limit of scope is still the end of the road. As futureCTdoc has pointed out, a case/procedure may seem very simple until it goes south, then it is in another league. It seems easy to manage the seemingly straightforward cases, but when those go wrong it takes extensive training to set the course staight. OMDs see WAY more patients during their internship and residency then you will see during your third, fourth, residency and now fellowship training. When I did rotations through the VA, which also had ophtho residents, the MDs saw twice to three times the patients we saw; just the name of the game. Be happy with your OD or opt out and go back to school, just that simple.
Not to ramble but I think most ODs are happy being the primary eye care providers to their patients . We are very conservative as a group and respect the limits of our knowledge and refer when our comfort level has been exceeded. Back to the point of this original post; if ophtho is what you love then pursue it. Be the rock star surgeon in the area of the country you decide to reside. Be kind to the ODs and network heavily with them. Do not have an optical so that referring ODs do not feel threatened that you will keep the patients without referring them back (opticals are not the $ generators they use to be). Hold CE meetings two to three times a year and invite your top referring ODs and newbees in the area. Take a handful of your top referring ODs and treat them to a weekend at your lake house (both my ant. and post. seg guys do this and I look forward to the events every year) and you will be busier than you can handle.