Guest post: Why I Became an Optometrist

Richard Zimbalist OD, FAAO is an optometrist at Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in Columbia, Missouri.  He is the developer of the popular optometric website, ODCareer.com, and welcomes blog submissions and case reports from other optometrists for publication.

Doctors are regarded as elite individuals in our society.  When you hear the word, most people conjure the image of a well-dressed professional with a white coat and stethoscope slung around their neck.  If you are interested in a medical career, do some serious soul searching first.  Is your aim to help people?  To earn a lot of money?  To cure cancer?  To have a family life?  I always had a fascination with medicine growing up and for years wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon.  It wasn’t until my last year in college though that I contemplated the necessary training to become an orthopedist. It would include medical school, internship, residency, and fellowship.  The total amount of additional education would come to 10 additional years after college; I wouldn’t start earning a real salary or have any semblance of a “normal” life until the age of 32.  I desired a career in medicine that provided me with a comfortable salary, traditional work schedule, and flexibility in career path options.

Not all doctors are medical doctors (MD).  The historical term has grown to include many other professions including dentists (DDS, DMD), optometrists (OD), podiatrists (DPM), pharmacists (PharmD), physical therapists (DPT), philosophers (PhD) and others.  There are many professions in the health field that enable you to work closely with patients as a doctor without the multitude of schooling.  The best thing you can do if you are interested in a medical field is to shadow a clinician.  When I decided that the MD route wasn’t for me, I took to shadowing many of the above professions.  I remember shadowing a podiatrist and actually made up an excuse to leave early because I was so repulsed by some of the feet that I saw! Shadowing provides you with an invaluable experience that you cannot google or read about anywhere on the web.  You will see what really happens on a day to day basis and most importantly, you will see if you can envision yourself in the field for the next 30 years.

I ultimately decided on optometry because it met many of the criteria that I wanted in a career.  Optometry is a great profession that has grown in strides during the past 20 years.  Optometrists used to solely prescribe glasses and contact lenses, however, we now evaluate disease, help with the legally blind, comanage LASIK, and much more.  Many optometrists have a traditional 9-5 workday although some work Saturdays also to provide extended hours for their patients.  There is a wide variety of practice options available to optometrists including positions in private practice, group practice, corporate, government and academia. I outline the various modes of practice on my website, ODCareer.com.  Amongst all of this, optometry was recently well ranked in the popular article 15 High-Paying Jobs for People Who Don’t Like Stress by Yahoo.

The old proverb which states, “The eyes are the window to the soul” has more truth to it than people realize.  Optometry is a great career choice for those who want a rewarding career in a medical field.

Share

Comments

  1. The best in class, Depoxito manage to pay for you high-end experience that deliver the see and setting of genuine VIP standarts, we present you the best fascinating to high-level experience of VIPs expect
    in any summit stop casino, grand enliven casino royale find
    the money for you the other studio design element including
    the grand blackjack, offering our VIP Customer the best experience of a Salon privee table.

    New style table after that feature across the room past grand roulette upgraded
    upon our provider playtechs mini prestige roulette which delivering more engaging and richer playing experience.
    The extra experience contains a sum of seven tables including five blackjack tables, one roulette
    table and one baccarat table. Grand sentient casino royale has been high
    hand-engineered to fit the needs of our customer to using it,
    and contains unique elements that is specially meant to maximize the impact value we got from our customers and
    diversify it to the existing network.
    Soon, Depoxito will develop an greater than before veracity technology upon breathing casino for our VIP member, these most unbiased technology ever seen in alive
    casino including this bigger reality. Which allow players to experience products on an entire supplementary
    level which is never seen in the past literally leaping out of the game
    and taking the blackjack, baccarat, roulette and additional game into the
    sum up entire level.
    Depoxito VIP Baccarat, we pay for you the extremely exclusive
    rouse VIP Baccarat that is played bearing in mind happening to 7 players at the thesame table and our severely trained lovely liven up baccarat dealer.

    And of course our VIP member will quality as if they were in reality sitting at one
    of the top casino baccarat table. This immersive gaming experience creates
    a hugely daring appearance that our VIP players will locate hard to
    surpass.
    Here is the list of sentient casino game that depoxito
    provide, we provide the widest range of live casino games on the market including :
    blackjack unlimited, blackjack prestige, roulette, baccarat, poker, hi-lo, sic bo, and
    grand bring to life casino royale such as Grand Baccarat, Grand Blackjack and Grand Roulette for our VIP member.
    And of course as a zealot of Depoxito you can enjoy all
    the games that we manage to pay for to you,
    all you compulsion to accomplish is just visit our site
    depoxito and register it unaided takes in the works to 3 minutes and next youre conventional to
    feat any game that you want.
    Be our VIP, subconscious our VIP supporter of course settled you
    the best benefits you can acquire from us all you craving to be a VIP supporter is
    utterly easy. all you need is just save playing on our site, addition and
    produce an effect next a VIP like the amount that our company had written, save playing and our customer sustain will
    admission you that you are promoted to become a VIP aficionada upon our site.

Speak Your Mind

*