Opticians – Striking A Happy Medium

If you want to feel warm and fuzzy about being in a quasi-medical profession and that you are somehow helping humankind then be a social worker.

If you want to work directly with a doctor assisting in surgery, performing refraction, and preliminary evaluations then become a Certified Ophthalmic Tech.

If you love science, math, formulas, and calculations then become an engineer, not an optician.

If you want to be a doctor of optometry then become one.

If you want to be an optician then be one, and damn it, be a good one. Know what you are talking about, know how to sell and what you are selling, and insist on providing quality products and services.

You are not going to win the Nobel Prize for physics. You are not going to cure cancer. You are probably not going to be rich and you will not be famous.

It seems like the opticians I meet fall towards one of two extremes. Some talk down their skills and knowledge and seem to take little pride in their abilities. Others, usually those fresh out of school, seem to have a slightly over-inflated sense that they are making a remarkable contribution to health and science. I’d love to see the role strike a balance and be recognized for the knowledge and abilities that we do posess and at the same time recognize that we are not doctors or engineers.

Kurt Vonnegut, my favorite author, ends one his finest works, Hocus Pocus with this line, “Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.”