pluvius PLUVIUS TODAY!

Our columnist Pluvius says there’s too much happening in the ophthalmic world to hold over until the next issue of Insight goes to print, so there’ll be at least one comment each working day from now on. Tune in daily.

Michelle Patterson, one of the reasons why Odmafairs have been so successful since being organised by Melbourne-based Exhibition Management, has moved on to another position in the exhibitions industry.
Always fair and helpful, she helped oil the wheels so that the Odmafairs all ran smoothly.
She will no doubt do well wherever she goes, and takes everyone’s good wishes with her.

The CPD requirement for optometrists to maintain their registration with the Optometry Board of Australia is 40 points each year, with those who have therapeutic-drugs endorsement having to obtain 20 of the 40 points through CPD related to that endorsement.
Where’s the logic in that?
Does it mean that the TDE’s only need to undertake half of the CPD work because they’re so clever that they just don’t need to?
Or does it mean that half of the CPD undertaken by the non-TDE’s (the very great majority) is of no real consequence?
Or is the whole CPD business simply a waste of time, energy and money?

A recent letter to ‘Optician’ in the United Kingdom by a Mr Edgar A Glucksman of Manchester nicely sends up the seemingly endless, unnecessary imposts on optometrists there by their governing body, the General Optical Council.

“In 1958, we were given the Opticians Act. In 1968, I passed by BOA exams, having learned all about the role of the GOC in protecting the public. The protection included ‘no advertising’, the ‘size of the postcard’ onto which the ‘controlled wording of the reminder’ was written, and ‘how often the reminder could be sent’, but ‘only at the request of the patient’,” Mr Gluckman wrote.

“We then had Maggie [Thatcher], who removed a lot of the protection that the public had up to that time. We then had Shipman! We then had Alder Hey! We then had Bristol!

“We then had CET forced upon us, and we can now expect revalidation. All to protect the public from those villains called optometrists and dispensing opticians.

“Would someone at the GOC, or anyone else, tell me and my colleagues when the last murder was committed by one of us, when one of us stole body parts, when one of us last operated upon a patient and caused them massive damage to their health? “So why do we villains require all this CET and revalidation? Does the public really have to be protected from us by such unnecessary methods?”

Not surprisingly, the Optometrists Board of Australia has turned down the request by the two optical dispensing bodies (the Australasian Dispensing Opticians Association and the and the Australian Dispensing Opticians Association) for permission to be granted for optical dispensers to use the word ‘optician’ to describe themselves, in view of the two associations using the word in their names since 1984 and dispensers worldwide using it for centuries. The reality is the OBA has no alternative than to enforce the National Law as it stands. The fault with it all lies with whoever drew up the legislation, particularly as there was no consultation to speak of with optical dispensers/dispensing opticians.

Whoever drew up the legislation has to fix it; it’s an embarrassment to all, not the least being a good number of optometrists, judging from recent chatter. The two ADOAs are now looking to pursue other approaches, including legal and political ones. It’s a contentious issue, which isn’t likely to be solved overnight, if ever.

But in the end, does it really matter? Will the health of the community be harmed if the word ‘optician’ is kept on ice for optometrists to use, but they don’t bother to do so – or want to? Yes, some may be affronted, but that’s not such a big deal and there are probably more important issues to be dealt with, such as trying to have overturned the deregulation of optical dispensing. But that too would be difficult to have carried out and would take years.Ah well, maybe the OBA should be renamed the Optometrists and Opticians Board of Australia; at least it would describe over whom it rules and OOBA, with an extra letter added at the front would have a nice ring to it, n’est pas?

But optical dispensers wouldn’t want to be ruled by a board with a majority of members being optometrists. And so it goes on.

But what to make of the OBA’s claim when rebutting the request by the two dispensing organisations that they be permitted to use the title ‘optician’? The board says it “continues to focus on protecting the public and will continue to act on any breaches of the National Law that come before it”. Seems a lame excuse, and I use the word ‘excuse’ deliberately, for keeping a title to which dispensers are logically more entitled than optometrists.

How exactly is the board protecting the public by denying the title’s use by dispensers? How exactly?

Optometry chatter is running hot with discussions on the desirability (and legality) of optometrists adopting the title ‘Dr’. The National Law is quite specific and is worth a read by those interested in using the title, so that they don’t end up being hauled before some sort of court or tribunal accused of trying to pass themselves off as medical practitioners.

In a nutshell, as there’s nothing in the National Law to prevent anyone from using the title, it seems as long as they use wording such as Dr Billy/Milly Smith (Optometrist), they should be OK. Perhaps for added safety, they should also add at the end ‘Not a Medical Practitioner’, as was suggested by a former registrar of the then NSW Board of Optometrical Registration and which saw a proposal for use of ‘Dr’ by optometrists quietly let drop.

And there’s nothing to stop anyone from using the title ‘Professor’ or ‘Admiral’ or ‘Brigadier-General’ or any other title, provided there’s a bracketed descriptive word at the end, so maybe we could all join the raft of professors at universities and adopt the ‘Professor’ title. Ah yes, Professor Pluvius sounds OK to me. But imagine the noses that would be put out of joint if we all decided to become Professors or even Emeritus Professors!

According to The Publication Whose Name We Do Not Utter it was “exclusively invited, from the optical trade press, to cover the 2011 Specsavers Spectacle Wearer of the Year Competition”. The truth is that said publication invited itself, not “was invited”, to the launch. Yet another gem from that fountain of truthful and accurate reporting!

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