I was born and raised on a West Kansas farm – the Dust Bowl.
When something broke, you fixed it. I was never a great mechanic, but by age 12 if I wasn’t going to school I was helping on the farm, be it feeding cattle, working summer follow, cutting wheat, fixing fences or packing wheel bearings.
No West Kansas kid, when asked to change the oil in the tractor or fix the corral fence, ever got to use the excuse, “Dad, I’m just no good at that.”
By the time I was 16 screw drivers, pliers and wrenches were an extension of my arm. I’d thumbed a couple thousand nuts on as many bolts and I could tell a 9/16th inch wrench from a ½ inch at a glance.
So when it came time to do optical lab duty in optometry school, adjusting glasses was second nature.
In our clinic I seldom get to do adjusts or even personal optics. It’s too difficult to separate from patient care to do optical when Family Eye Clinic has technicians who are better than I am.
Still, it seems the more optometry leans toward medical care the further they lean away from optical care. Some optometrists are embarrassed to be seen doing optical work.
My question is, “Why?”
So it’s more important to heal a sick eye than it is to bring that eye to its full visual potential with a well-prescribed and well-fitted pair of glasses? Really?
At Family Eye Clinic we take exception to such an attitude. Helping people is helping people be it curing their glaucoma, adjusting their glasses or just giving them a compliment or a needed pat on the back.