Bill Harvey: The importance of the gift of the gab

One of the first practices I worked in (about 25 years ago now) had gained some notoriety because a previous practitioner had been found to have worked there as an optometrist for a few years without ever having completed their qualifications. Perhaps more shocking was the fact that this had only come to light after they had been arrested for credit card fraud and at no time during their period of practice had any suspicions been raised.

Many of my earliest patients had asked where the ‘nice optician’ had gone and it was soon clear that they all seemed to have had some considerable respect for the fraudster. It appeared that any challenging patients had been avoided and left to others, while those who had been seen had had minor refraction adjustments after an average test time of five to 10 minutes.