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Doctors are Inferior

on September 21st, 2007 | Filed under Optoblog

It looks like doctors are at the bottom of the totem pole. We are in the wrong profession if we’re trying to make tons of money. I’ve recently had a few undergrad students want to shadow me at work. I tell them all the same thing, “Don’t become an optometrist because you think you’ll have an easy lifestyle and comfortable living. I work six 10-hour days a week, and I don’t even have a house. Only become an optometrist because you love it.”

They all give me that same look of trying to hide their befuddlement. I know they’re thinking, “Yah, but it’ll be different for me. You must be a bad optometrist because statistics say I’ll make over $100 grand a year.”

And I’m thinking, how could anyone possibly love to be an optometrist unless you already work as an optometrist? It’s a Catch 22. By time you are one, it’s too late to back out of all those school loans if you decide it’s not for you. Maybe a good check about whether being an optometrist for you is to go out everyday and explain to ten people, all over the age of 40, what presbyopia and astigmatism are and why all the sudden they can’t see up close anymore even though they used to see just fine until about two months ago. If you enjoy that, then maybe optometry is for you.

The Independent Urologist’s post makes me think maybe we should just start buying products directly from those who make them, not necessary those who distribute/market/resell them. Insurance has done nothing to help optometry, and I wish people realized they would be better off paying doctors directly for eyecare instead of adding a middleman who takes money from both of us.

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