Letters: May 18

I have just read Lewis Jacobs' profile (Optician, April 27) and can see that he, along with others, clearly hates calling patients 'customers'. I can appreciate why optometrists and DOs view those attending eye examinations as 'patients', but surely every one can see why those same people transmogrify into customers as they emerge from the eye test to buy glasses or are in fact customers from the very start when they pop in to buy a pair of 'cool shades'?

R Longhurst's repeated assertion (Optician, March 30) that optometrists should stick to sight testing is an insult to many and I dare say that most optometrists who run successful businesses without a DO are befuddled by his thinking. However, given the transmogrification referred to above, I can see why a 'good' optometrist and a 'good' DO may make the 'ideal' team, but DOs should be comfortable knowing that their position is more about fashion, retail and business than it is in providing medical care. If anyone disagrees, than please tell me whether fashion or medical demands have driven manufacturers to make varifocals with very short corridor lengths, high base lenses or lenses in ever thinner materials?