I’ve been talking about this LaGuardia thing for 7 years!

I’ve mentioned this a bunch of times before. I saw the whole thing transpire from a different direction.
http://www.odwire.org/forum/threads/6786-Donation-to-ODWire-com?highlight=allenberry

Here’s what I understand: In 1965, I worked doing VT for Milt Eger, right after he’d been named Editor of the JAOA. He and a few others had a secret meeting at the Allenberry Conference Center. They had just preplanned another secret meeting that occurred about two years later, at LaGuardia.

Eger MJ. Now it can and should be told. J Am Optom Assoc. 1989 Apr;60(4):323-6. No abstract available. PMID: 2723329 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]

The idea was to lay out a strategy for beginning the introduction of diagnostic and therapeutic drugs into optometric practice. By 1974, West Virginia became the first state to pass an optometric therapeutic law. Milt came back from Allenberry, was dancing in his seat. “Optometry is going to get diagnostic and therapeutic drugs, Merrill!”

“Why?” I asked, “When most optometrists don’t know how to practice optometry properly!” (I was a smart-mouth from early on….)

“So we get the respect we deserve!”

Ah!

We’ve been chasing the bright elusive butterfly of respect.

It was hubris, not market or intellectual goals drove that initial foray into the curricula changes that led us to where we now are: mini-OMD’s, but still dissatisfied with the respect that we (don’t) get. The average practice in the 70’s saw about 1200 patients a year, now we see 2200, give or take. Better care? (More toys, for sure!) Maybe, but mostly just faster care. Can’t slow down to actually talk to the patients (for cause, perhaps, in cases like Richard Hom’s situation). Less loyalty among patients. Higher grosses, higher cost of delivery, less net %-age at the bottom line.

Low vision affects how many?

2%? 5%? 10%? — 1%?

Pathology, for sure: maybe a whopping 10%.

The right (meaningful) questions start with: what unidentified visual needs are there in the populace? Refractive error for sure, low vison for sure, ocular path for sure, but is there a need that is being overlooked? A problem that exists in, oh say, 22-30% of the population?
Higher order visual processing problems as it affects behavior and perception is not popular in our vocation, but it is no less valid as a dimension of our art and science. Post-concussion syndrome is addressed marvelously with microprisms and convergence therapy — NOBODY else is in a position to even begin to deal with it, but whether you feel inclined to do so or not, you ARE.

God forbid that we drop the ball, but head injury is definitely in our bailiwick.

Do you, as a trained vision professional, see visual processing as a dimension of your profession’s concern? Why or why not?Since I wrote the above italicized response, my understanding has changed about VT — PPTVS has ben added in, and at least half of my patients are now TBI’s – it’s bigger than I ever dreamed.

Anyone?

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