My best advice for all of you pre-optometry students is to strongly consider another profession. If not, work as hard as you can to expand the scope of practice.
I wish I had heard and taken this advice before starting SUNY-O in the mid-2000’s. I did hear it mid-way through the first year of school but by then it was too late.
I’ve always been a numbers guy so I’ll start with salary. The highest earning optometrists that don't own a chain of stores generally make under 300k per year. Regardless if it’s at a hospital, corporate job, or self-employed typical OD’s (90+%) make well under 150k.
I thought I could start a practice but with a six figure student loan to pay and the competition, that would have been foolish. Now that I’m in the financial position where I could start a practice glasses sales are going online the way contact lens sales did in the dawn of internet shopping.
The corporate job I worked for over 5 years never gave raises. I looked for other jobs. I could find other jobs with better hours but never one that made sense financially. Every practice I saw for sale was ridiculously priced. A typical scenario was 500k to buy an office where I would take a 50k pay cut.
Respect. I know most OD’s want to tell you they feel well respected by every other medical professional. Get real. I’d say 50% of MD’s write off what you say. A good example, many OMD’s give out there cell number to optometrist to call if you want some quick advice. I called one once. He had an ophthalmic tech answering and giving advice. I interpret that to mean, he thinks a typical optometrist knows less than a good tech. Many people will still think your an optician. Do you want to explain the difference at every dinner party? Three years into my career I had an OMD 3-5 years older than me visit my corporate office and he was surprised I had a fully equipped exam lane.
It’s not that OD’s are now vastly inferior but in the past they were and that’s a hard perception to overcome. And face it, there are a lot of bad optometrist. There is a complete ***** that worked at my corporate job. I don’t know how he made it out of school.
Scope of practice is important because you are going to need to do something more to do once the declining glasses sales bankrupt a few big chains. There will be optometrist looking for jobs and salaries are going to sink. I remember our staffing OD doing all he could to get new OD’s to our practice. Now he has too many and with glasses sales down 200k at just one location they are firing all part-time OD’s.
Lifestyle is often touted as a draw to optometry. It is a low stress easy job. I sat at my corporate job with my feet up doing what I wanted most of the time. However, when you consider the pay, 10 hour days, and what you can actually afford after paying those student loans you’d better think up another stream of income while you have your feet up.
Think about it, a good family health insurance plan is 10k, student loan payments are 24k (2k/mo), 2 weeks vacation time is valued at 5k, taxes take about 33% or 50k, a 401k contribution is 6% or 9k, and licensing fees/continuing ed/dues are at least 2k. Most OD’s will have to live on 50k or less for house, car, and lifestyle. I hope your spouse has a good career. Private school is probably not going to be an option for your children and they will likely have to borrow to pay for college.
If you chose the MD/DO route you will automatically be more respected, there were several programs that pay back your student loans (you’ll need to verify they still exist), and the salary is more. You could always work 20 hour weeks and live better than most optometrist. I was scared away from the MD path by those that talk about the schedule. Now that I understand the world a little better I realize that MD’s make more money because the demand is higher and the supply is lower. With that said, the MD can say I’ll only work “X” and as long as it is remotely reasonable they will likely find a position.
Here’s my prediction for those of you that decide to continue down this road to become an optometrist:
Perhaps the profession is going to evolve where care is hard for patients to get medical care. Oklahoma and Kentucky are excellent examples. The scope will gradually expand geographically as it has in the past. It’s going to takes decades to reach the big cities where many doctors would like to be. During that evolution, opticals are going to close due to online retailers, city jobs are going to become fewer, and a city salary may be so low it could only make sense to those without debt. If you want to pay off your loans or start a practice perhaps you’d best spend your time in Appalachia or on a reservation in OK.
I wish I had heard and taken this advice before starting SUNY-O in the mid-2000’s. I did hear it mid-way through the first year of school but by then it was too late.
I’ve always been a numbers guy so I’ll start with salary. The highest earning optometrists that don't own a chain of stores generally make under 300k per year. Regardless if it’s at a hospital, corporate job, or self-employed typical OD’s (90+%) make well under 150k.
I thought I could start a practice but with a six figure student loan to pay and the competition, that would have been foolish. Now that I’m in the financial position where I could start a practice glasses sales are going online the way contact lens sales did in the dawn of internet shopping.
The corporate job I worked for over 5 years never gave raises. I looked for other jobs. I could find other jobs with better hours but never one that made sense financially. Every practice I saw for sale was ridiculously priced. A typical scenario was 500k to buy an office where I would take a 50k pay cut.
Respect. I know most OD’s want to tell you they feel well respected by every other medical professional. Get real. I’d say 50% of MD’s write off what you say. A good example, many OMD’s give out there cell number to optometrist to call if you want some quick advice. I called one once. He had an ophthalmic tech answering and giving advice. I interpret that to mean, he thinks a typical optometrist knows less than a good tech. Many people will still think your an optician. Do you want to explain the difference at every dinner party? Three years into my career I had an OMD 3-5 years older than me visit my corporate office and he was surprised I had a fully equipped exam lane.
It’s not that OD’s are now vastly inferior but in the past they were and that’s a hard perception to overcome. And face it, there are a lot of bad optometrist. There is a complete ***** that worked at my corporate job. I don’t know how he made it out of school.
Scope of practice is important because you are going to need to do something more to do once the declining glasses sales bankrupt a few big chains. There will be optometrist looking for jobs and salaries are going to sink. I remember our staffing OD doing all he could to get new OD’s to our practice. Now he has too many and with glasses sales down 200k at just one location they are firing all part-time OD’s.
Lifestyle is often touted as a draw to optometry. It is a low stress easy job. I sat at my corporate job with my feet up doing what I wanted most of the time. However, when you consider the pay, 10 hour days, and what you can actually afford after paying those student loans you’d better think up another stream of income while you have your feet up.
Think about it, a good family health insurance plan is 10k, student loan payments are 24k (2k/mo), 2 weeks vacation time is valued at 5k, taxes take about 33% or 50k, a 401k contribution is 6% or 9k, and licensing fees/continuing ed/dues are at least 2k. Most OD’s will have to live on 50k or less for house, car, and lifestyle. I hope your spouse has a good career. Private school is probably not going to be an option for your children and they will likely have to borrow to pay for college.
If you chose the MD/DO route you will automatically be more respected, there were several programs that pay back your student loans (you’ll need to verify they still exist), and the salary is more. You could always work 20 hour weeks and live better than most optometrist. I was scared away from the MD path by those that talk about the schedule. Now that I understand the world a little better I realize that MD’s make more money because the demand is higher and the supply is lower. With that said, the MD can say I’ll only work “X” and as long as it is remotely reasonable they will likely find a position.
Here’s my prediction for those of you that decide to continue down this road to become an optometrist:
Perhaps the profession is going to evolve where care is hard for patients to get medical care. Oklahoma and Kentucky are excellent examples. The scope will gradually expand geographically as it has in the past. It’s going to takes decades to reach the big cities where many doctors would like to be. During that evolution, opticals are going to close due to online retailers, city jobs are going to become fewer, and a city salary may be so low it could only make sense to those without debt. If you want to pay off your loans or start a practice perhaps you’d best spend your time in Appalachia or on a reservation in OK.
