View from the High Street: Let’s promote our profession

Spring has sprung and the new shoots are poking their way through in our gardens and parks. Our pre-registration optometrists are coming to the end of their stage 1 assessments and progressing towards the next challenges in their career.

And hopefully the budding optometrists of the future in schools throughout the country are considering careers in optometry.

It’s disappointing that many schools and careers advisers do not recommend optometry to their students, with many not even knowing what it is. I’ve lost count of the number of patients who are shocked that there is an actual degree to study in optometry; most seem think that we work our way up from reception. The more able science students are steered towards medicine or engineering and optometry is traditionally a career that students fall into by accident.