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Career Description

Diagnose, manage, and treat conditions and diseases of the human eye and visual system. Examine eyes and visual system, diagnose problems or impairments, prescribe corrective lenses, and provide treatment. May prescribe therapeutic drugs to treat specific eye conditions.

What Job Titles Optometrists Might Have

• Doctor of Optometry (OD)
• Chief
• Optometry Service
• Eye Clinic Manager
• Optometrist

What Optometrists Do

• Examine eyes, using observation, instruments, and pharmaceutical agents, to determine visual acuity and perception, focus, and coordination and to diagnose diseases and other abnormalities, such as glaucoma or color blindness.
• Prescribe, supply, fit and adjust eyeglasses, contact lenses, and other vision aids.
• Analyze test results and develop a treatment plan.
• Prescribe medications to treat eye diseases if state laws permit.
• Remove foreign bodies from the eye.
• Prescribe therapeutic procedures to correct or conserve vision.
• Educate and counsel patients on contact lens care, visual hygiene, lighting arrangements, and safety factors.
• Consult with and refer patients to ophthalmologist or other health care practitioner if additional medical treatment is determined necessary.
• Provide patients undergoing eye surgeries, such as cataract and laser vision correction, with pre- and post-operative care.
• Provide vision therapy and low-vision rehabilitation.

What Optometrists Should Be Good At

• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Mathematical Reasoning - The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Flexibility of Closure - The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Finger Dexterity - The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
• Arm-Hand Steadiness - The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
• Control Precision - The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
• Manual Dexterity - The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Visualization - The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.

What Optometrists Should Be Interested In

• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.
• Social - Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
• Realistic - Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

What Optometrists Need to Learn

• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Chemistry - Knowledge of the chemical composition, structure, and properties of substances and of the chemical processes and transformations that they undergo. This includes uses of chemicals and their interactions, danger signs, production techniques, and disposal methods.
• Sales and Marketing - Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Economics and Accounting - Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking and the analysis and reporting of financial data.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Physics - Knowledge and prediction of physical principles, laws, their interrelationships, and applications to understanding fluid, material, and atmospheric dynamics, and mechanical, electrical, atomic and sub- atomic structures and processes.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.