Unlike medicine and dentistry, optometry education does not receive federal support for clinical education. This new educational model would award the OD degree in 3-years, federal-supported residency training in the 4th year prior to licensing and then board certification in general practice. This would require less student debt; clinical training facilities would receive federal support; and graduates would be board eligible in general practice without additional training.

Read the full paper:

A New Educational Model – by Dr. Charles Mullen (PDF)

When the ABCMO was invited to brief the Association of Regulatory Boards of Optometry (ARBO) Dr. Ken Myers stressed that “board certification” for general practice optometrists was not required, proposed or contemplated by any health care organization and, specifically, was not part of the recently passed “Health Care Reform Act of 2010”. He explained this was because the Joint Commission On Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations affirmed, in 1986, that while specialists are expected by accredited healthcare facilities to be board certified in their specialty, defined-license, independent prescribing practitioners such as dentists, optometrists, audiologists and psychologists are eligible to be granted those privileges supported by their degrees and state practice acts and need no additional credentials to be granted medical staff membership and general practice clinical privileges.

This reflects the fact board certification is used to denote advanced competence in a specialty of the profession in which a practitioner is licensed and this advanced competence is achieved by additional, accredited, post-graduate clinical residency training, passage of a written examination testing that advanced competence in the specialty followed by certification by a specialty board. Thus there is no need, or precedence, for requiring additional credentials of those engaged in the general practice of a defined-license, independent prescribing profession as they are within the authority of their respective state practice acts.

Read the full presentation to ARBO (PDF)