Why is optometry school 4 years long?

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Then it wouldn't be a doctorate degree. Most ODs practice well below their education, that's not the point.

That's not true. I had a professor who got his PhD in 3 years. Is he any less a PhD holder than someone who took 5 years?

I think a DPT is 3 years. Are they any less a doctor?


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That's not true. I had a professor who got his PhD in 3 years. Is he any less a PhD holder than someone who took 5 years?

I think a DPT is 3 years. Are they any less a doctor?


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I don't remember mentioning either of those programs.
 
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You didn't but my point is, a program does not have to be 4 years to be a doctorate.


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As things stand right now, Optometry does. That is my point. It's a matter of accreditation, and that is the dead horse we are all beating. Whether or not it "should" is subject to opinion.
 
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You didn't but my point is, a program does not have to be 4 years to be a doctorate.

You're right. But DPT had a different educational track prior to become doctorate level. It was a Master's level degree, and there's no prescribed length to Master's degrees.

Anyways - the optom curriculum probably can be learned in 3 years, but that change won't happen in the current educational environment.
 
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I am in dental school... it takes us 4 years to learn every procedure (root canals, fillings, extractions, cleanings, dentures, partial dentures, space maintenance... the list goes on) along with the necessary hand skills, prescribe medications appropriately (pain meds, antibiotics, benzos, etc.), and provide emergency dental services. But you guys don't do surgical procedures (in most states), you don't prescribe much (contacts don't count), OMDs take care of most emergencies. Most of your job can be done by either OMDs or techs... so whats up with the 4 years of schooling?
It takes optometrists 4 years to learn every procedure, test, and diagnosis related to vision and the eye (for the sake of space I'll avoid putting down a textbook size summary of these items) as well as have 1 to 2 years of hands-on clinical experience in a proctored setting. Even this is only the beginning and a good clinician with continue to learn and through experience grow into becoming a skilled competent eye doctor. Your question speaks about your ignorance of the complexity of the eye and visual system and although you prefaced your comment with a disclaimer, it certainly did come off as condescending and pretentious.
Optometrists prescribe pain meds, antibiotics, steroids, etc. and certainly do provide emergency eye care. They are primary eye care providers and in rural settings are often the only trained eye care professional in the surrounding region. Optometrists do perform minor surgeries in nearly every state (such as foreign body removals) and are quickly adopting laws to perform laser surgeries and cosmetic lid procedures as well. Health care laws are changing rapidly and dentists are certainly realizing this with dental hygienists and dental therapists in some states now setting up independent practices to perform oral exams and perform most of the tasks that had previously required dentists, including extractions, fillings, cleanings, dentures, etc..
OMDs do not receive the same training as an optometrist. Their knowledge of optics, refraction, and binocular vision is generally shallow. In some instances they can perform similarly to an OD but as you know, an OMD requires 11-13 years of training while Optometry requires 8 years (including undergrad) so I don't see OMDs as a replacement for ODs.
Techs are trained in performing tasks but do not have a doctors in-depth knowledge of the underlying mechanisms or the potential problems and diagnosis. Techs are techs. They aren't doctors. I would note that my last visit to the dentist, I spent 95% of my time with the dental technicians. If I were ignorant of the training that a dentist requires, I would say that it seems like 95% of a dentist's job could be performed by a dental tech.
Optometry schools often reteach subjects from undergrad such as biochemistry, anatomy, microbiology, and physiology but this is no different from medical school. Dental schools reteach biology, anatomy, biochemistry, and microbiology as well.
 
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It takes optometrists 4 years to learn every procedure, test, and diagnosis related to vision and the eye (for the sake of space I'll avoid putting down a textbook size summary of these items) as well as have 1 to 2 years of hands-on clinical experience in a proctored setting. Even this is only the beginning and a good clinician with continue to learn and through experience grow into becoming a skilled competent eye doctor. Your question speaks about your ignorance of the complexity of the eye and visual system and although you prefaced your comment with a disclaimer, it certainly did come off as condescending and pretentious.
Optometrists prescribe pain meds, antibiotics, steroids, etc. and certainly do provide emergency eye care. They are primary eye care providers and in rural settings are often the only trained eye care professional in the surrounding region. Optometrists do perform minor surgeries in nearly every state (such as foreign body removals) and are quickly adopting laws to perform laser surgeries and cosmetic lid procedures as well. Health care laws are changing rapidly and dentists are certainly realizing this with dental hygienists and dental therapists in some states now setting up independent practices to perform oral exams and perform most of the tasks that had previously required dentists, including extractions, fillings, cleanings, dentures, etc..
OMDs do not receive the same training as an optometrist. Their knowledge of optics, refraction, and binocular vision is generally shallow. In some instances they can perform similarly to an OD but as you know, an OMD requires 11-13 years of training while Optometry requires 8 years (including undergrad) so I don't see OMDs as a replacement for ODs.
Techs are trained in performing tasks but do not have a doctors in-depth knowledge of the underlying mechanisms or the potential problems and diagnosis. Techs are techs. They aren't doctors. I would note that my last visit to the dentist, I spent 95% of my time with the dental technicians. If I were ignorant of the training that a dentist requires, I would say that it seems like 95% of a dentist's job could be performed by a dental tech.
Optometry schools often reteach subjects from undergrad such as biochemistry, anatomy, microbiology, and physiology but this is no different from medical school. Dental schools reteach biology, anatomy, biochemistry, and microbiology as well.
Yoinks, your guy's responses and schooling are way longer than they should be !
 
Yoinks, your guy's responses and schooling are way longer than they should be !

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Do you learn this in the second or third year of dental school?
 
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I've honestly never seen that before. But I do know some of those words!
yo, you learn anything about enamel yet, or is that next semester?
 
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I have sincere respect for my optometry professional colleagues and appreciate their education and work, but I do want to clarify a few things.

Health care laws are changing rapidly and dentists are certainly realizing this with dental hygienists and dental therapists in some states now setting up independent practices to perform oral exams and perform most of the tasks that had previously required dentists, including extractions, fillings, cleanings, dentures, etc..

This is where public misinformation of the technical skill and medical expertise of a dental professional has lead. The most common sources of life-threatening soft tissue infections of the head and neck are directly from dentition and tonsils. From these sites, infection can spread rapidly across facial planes. People have and do die from mismanaged oral healthcare. With access to modern dentistry, this has largely been taken care of and quality of life for many have improved.

On a patient with rampant caries and abscesses, would you trust a technician who has gone through two years of training to be able to control that infection, understand the risk and medical attention required to curtail possible injuries to a patient's health? Would you be comfortable with a therapist doing permanent surgical procedures on you?

Anyways, in large part, dental therapists are outlawed in most of the country. It is just unfortunate that the public in some areas sees their service as something that could be beneficial to their health when a doctor would best serve their needs.

I would note that my last visit to the dentist, I spent 95% of my time with the dental technicians. If I were ignorant of the training that a dentist requires, I would say that it seems like 95% of a dentist's job could be performed by a dental tech.

Dental technicians are used in the preparation of prosthetic appliances and are usually not there with a patient. All of their work is done in a lab, so you would not see them unless on some specific case you were to have some measurements done after a full set of extractions and the surgeon or other clinical staff don't want to do the measurements. You're probably talking about other peripheral staff like the assistants and hygienists.

The surgical side of dentistry is where the dentist is largely in. Cleanings are done by hygienists, and for most people, they spend most of their dental time with the hygienist. If you have maintained good oral care, then yes, you may see the doctor as doing the least amount of work for you. But for many patients where their oral healthcare is not great, and surgical intervention is needed, then they see the doctor much more often and may have a different view of their role.

Techs are trained in performing tasks but do not have a doctors in-depth knowledge of the underlying mechanisms or the potential problems and diagnosis. Techs are techs. They aren't doctors.

Exactly.
 
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I would never hire someone from a 3 yr program......
 
As someone who's gone through the schooling, you're right, there's really no need for 4 years.

1st year= rehashing pre-reqs that most of us have already taken.
4th year= an entire year of clinical rotations.

2.5 years would be more appropriate

I've been an OD for 20 years and agreed. We basically took Microbiology ALL OVER AGAIN in optometry school and I'd just taken it the prior semester!!! I was so mad. As far as optics ... you learn almost all of it in the last term of physics. The optics course need not have lasted an entire year and I could have done without the optical lab where we redid experiments we already did in Physics lab!!! This speaks for so much of the optometry curriculum and quite frankly, I learned the basic sciences BETTER in undergrad.

You can do all the optometric sciences in three semesters. Then start clinic rotations. Were that the case, we should require a bachelor degree first.

The problem with clinic was that, for one whole semester, we never had any patients. In one rotation, I would bring a pile of OD magazines and books to fill the boredom. In that one location, I remember having TWO patients the entire semester. What a waste! If this is still the case, then clinic should be combined with more didactic work, perhaps online courses. Schools should be honest with themselves about their patient load and adjust the didactic and clinic work accordingly.

But like most everything, it's all about the money.

I do like the idea of an additional year of residency, but you get into hot water if you make them mandatory because there won't be enough slots for all students.
 
I needed the OD curriculum to pass the NBEO....every bit of it.
 
I needed the OD curriculum to pass the NBEO....every bit of it.

This was a long time ago and hopefully the school has corrected the problem, but our Neuroanatomy/physiology class was truly awful and extremely deficient to the point where our lack of knowledge made it dangerous to practice optometry. To pass the NBEO on this issue, I had to study Neuro on my own, almost from scratch. On top of that, there were NBEO questions on neurodevelopment and I learned that from a self-paced workbook that I picked up from an older optometry student. I did very well on that section.

The other professors KNEW this teacher was not teaching Neuro in a traditional manner and these other teachers told us that we'd need to learn it on our own. They couldn't get rid of the guy because he was tenured. Hopefully he retired! He got up in front of the class on the first day and declared, "I am not a teacher. I am a professor and so I profess." It went downhill from there.

He would jump from subject to subject, cite psychology studies on this and that and like to profess about the startle reflex a lot. It was a joke and a waste of tuition money. It seemed to me like he'd smoked too much pot in his youth. It was that scrambled!

I still believed the program can be condensed and shortened, BUT I also think that in order to do that they would need to set up a strict system of accountability where tenure can be revoked and bad teachers can be fired. Our curriculum was sufficient for the NBEO in many areas, but this was one area that was grossly deficient and it was so bad I'm surprised the school could retain their credentialed status.

That was 20 years ago though and I'm sure he's long gone!!!
 
I was accepted to salus scholars PCO 3 year program, as well as SUNY program (4 years) and am having a tough time deciding between schools..could anyone provide some input?
Hello! I was just wondering..how are you liking the PCO 3 year program so far? Iam interviewing for the program.. and was wondering how you like it and how the interview went!
 
So this may come off as troll-like or inflammatory, but please excuse my ignorance.

I just met a first year optometry student and talked a little about their schooling. Why on earth does it take 4 years to learn optometry? Techs can refract, OMDs do the surgery, GED grads can help patients try on glasses... what do you guys do that takes you so long to learn? 4 years is a LONG time!

I am in dental school... it takes us 4 years to learn every procedure (root canals, fillings, extractions, cleanings, dentures, partial dentures, space maintenance... the list goes on) along with the necessary hand skills, prescribe medications appropriately (pain meds, antibiotics, benzos, etc.), and provide emergency dental services. But you guys don't do surgical procedures (in most states), you don't prescribe much (contacts don't count), OMDs take care of most emergencies. Most of your job can be done by either OMDs or techs... so whats up with the 4 years of schooling?

That sounds rather mean, and I'm hoping you prove me wrong! Sorry if I offended everyone, this is a hard question to word without sounding like a jerk.


It is probably to make in on par with medical school. If OD programs were shorter in length than MD and DO programs, the OD program might be considered less rigorous.
 
It is probably to make in on par with medical school. If OD programs were shorter in length than MD and DO programs, the OD program might be considered less rigorous.

The OD programs ARE considered less rigorous. If it only takes medical schools 2 years (and at many it is shortened to 1-1.5 years) to teach didactic material on all body systems, it is beyond me why it would take 3 years to learn about the eye.
 
The OD programs ARE considered less rigorous. If it only takes medical schools 2 years (and at many it is shortened to 1-1.5 years) to teach didactic material on all body systems, it is beyond me why it would take 3 years to learn about the eye.

You answered your own question.It takes 2 years to learn systemic and a year on the eye.Throw in a year of clinicals and we are at 4 years.Of course some years mesh into each domain but a 4 year program of 22-24 hrs a semester skipping only one month in one summer is fairly rigorous.
 
Year 1: 80% basic sciences including anatomy and pharmacology 20% general eye subject
Year 2: 80% in depth eye health and disease; introduction into equipment/techniques 20% basic physics/optics/ sciences
Year 3: 50% clinic/ practicing basic eye exams ; 50% in depth eye health/disease/treatment
Year 4: 100% Clinically training at various modes of practice

Which year could you take out?
 
That's not true. I had a professor who got his PhD in 3 years. Is he any less a PhD holder than someone who took 5 years?

I think a DPT is 3 years. Are they any less a doctor?


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Actually yes
 
The OD programs ARE considered less rigorous. If it only takes medical schools 2 years (and at many it is shortened to 1-1.5 years) to teach didactic material on all body systems, it is beyond me why it would take 3 years to learn about the eye.



The time is needed to develop valuable specialized skills.
 
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If it only takes medical schools 2 years (and at many it is shortened to 1-1.5 years) to teach didactic material on all body systems, it is beyond me why it would take 3 years to learn about the eye.

Terrible logic. You could easily spend 3 years or more on any single body system, and that is exactly what happens. Medical residencies are required for any specialization within the medical field. Your last statement hit the nail precisely on the head. It is beyond you.
 
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