Optometry Questions.

[Ward]

Hi,

I am just a college freshman who is interested in optometry.

I have a few questions.

1. In my college booklet it says I can be admitted to my states optometry school with just two years of undergrade. Is that possible?

2. I am interested in occular disease. After doing an occular disease residency will there be many job offers for that and if so what type of salary could a person expect?

3. In Oklahoma what type of interventional procedures will I be allowed to do?


Thank you for any replies.

Roy

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[Rosanna]

Hi Roy:

1. You may be admitted to an optometry school that does not require a bachelor's degree if you finish their prerequisites (it could take 2 or 3 years, it is really up to you).

I'm assuming that your home state is Oklahoma (because of your 3rd question), and Northeastern State University will accept an applicant without a bachelor's degree. A bachelor's degree is always recommended.

NSU College of Optometry requires a minimum of 90 semester hours and completion of specific pre-optometric courses found here - http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~optometry/admission.html

If your home state isn't Oklahoma, you can check which optometry schools require a bachelor's degree at - http://www.opted.org/info_profile2.cfm

A link to each school's website is provided underneath their names and you can research the specific requirements for each school.

I don't have an answer for question #2 or #3.

Good luck.

Best wishes,

Rosanna

 

[Ward]

I did check out the requirements for nsu and they said that if I was admitted with 60 hours they would use the first two years of Opt school like they were part of undergrad and grant me a BS in basic vision sciences.

 

[angelic02]

One question:

Why do schools (OD, MD, DDS, etc.) grant BS degrees to people who did not complete undergraduate school?

Perhaps a student planned on working for a masters degree after professional school? I would guess that then a person might need a bachelors degree, for which the professional school would supply. I know a person at my undergraduate school who is working for a BA or BS degree with a major in dentistry, meaning the remaining year(s) for the bachelors degree would be completed in professional school with the undergraduate degree awarded by the undergraduate school. Shouldn't the OD, MD, DDS, etc. serve as sufficient recognition for your all of your work in professional school? This would be entirely different if the professional schools required additional work in addition to that required of the normal curriculum. Please tell me that that is the case. If not, then it would seem like a student is receiving double recognition for the same work (BS and DDS, BS/OD, BS/MD). This, to me at least, seems akin to receiving two grades in different classes for the same paper.

Okay, fine, I'll admit that I don't know anything at all about the issues involved. Somebody, then, enlighten me.

Please excuse any possible errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling that may have occurred while writing this post.

 

[Richard_Hom]

Dear Ward

1. "I am interested in occular disease. After doing an occular disease residency will there be many job offers for that and if so what type of salary could a person expect?"

The ocular disease residency will be particularly useful for any position in the VA medical system and in many other institutional practices such as instructor or staff member at an ophthlamology clinic that is directly related to an ophthalmology residency program, and at co-management or refractive surgery practices.

The kind of job offers that might be available is related to your interests. If you want to continue in treating ocular disease, then the institutional practice might be more relevant. A few states that have an especially broad scope of practice such as OK, NC, WV, etc might have more job opportunities than other states.

Another possibility is to purchase an ophthalmology practice where the owner has mainly a medical rather than surgical practice. It's possible to "hire" an ophthalmologist to do the surgical part of the practice and you do the medical part.

2. "...salary..."

I'm not sure about salary issues.

3. "...interventional procedures..."

I'm not clear about your question regarding interventional procedures, but a call or email to the Board of Optometry in OK might help there.


Regards,
Richard_Hom

 

[stompy]

Will someone enlighten me in what an ocular disease residency is? WHat does ocular disease cover...etc..etc...etc. Thanks.

 

[Richard_Hom]

Dear stompy,

An ocular disease residency is an extra year of structured clinical experience that exposes the optometry graduate to a greater breadth of clinical problems than normally met in the clinical rotations. In addition, as a licensed optometrist, you're able to manage these patients independently from a faculty member.

HTH,
Richard

Originally posted by stompy
Will someone enlighten me in what an ocular disease residency is? WHat does ocular disease cover...etc..etc...etc. Thanks.