Interprofessional Education
Optometry and the Future of Health Care: Schools and Colleges Embrace Interprofessional Education
“Optometry and the Future of Health Care: Schools and Colleges Embrace Interprofessional Education” from ASCO’s blog
“Why interprofessional health care education?” As a pre-optometry student, it is the question you should be asking.
In a nutshell the answer is, because the interprofessional team approach setting is how optometrists will be required to practice in the future.

George Comer, OD, Associate Professor, participates in interprofessional education model with physician assistant and optometry students
As an adviser to pre-optometry students, it is frustrating knowing that most optometric shadowing done by pre-optometry students takes place in private or group practices where customarily, interprofessional practice—namely, working as part of team-approach to patient care—is not part of the experience. As such, when I explain that our optometry program here at MBKU is converting over to the interprofessional educational model, I am met with the look from potential students of “why?” Despite the current trends and all of the talk from pre-health advisers and forecasts about how health care delivery is changing, most of you still don’t get it.
In addition to an article I wrote on the topic, here is an article from ASCO’s blog on the topic of why interprofessional education is necessary for the optometrists of the future: Access ASCO’s blog article here. It features information about the various optometry schools that provide interprofessional education as vital to their programs.
Here’s a quote from ASCO’s article by one of our students, which says it all:

Warren Morton, Class of 2019 with Dean Stanley Woo at White Coat Ceremony
Warren Morton, a first-year student at SCCO at MBKU and President of the Class of 2019, says “It’s easy to see how important concepts from IPE can be in the real world when ultimately the patients have the most to gain from a more complete healthcare team.” Warren says it’s been interesting to see via the IPE curriculum how valuable PAs are for the country’s healthcare system and how OD and PA students approach ideas differently. He also says he’s realized that “failure to recognize the importance of working with other professions will leave our own profession at a disadvantage.”
Optometrists are continuing to emerge in health care delivery as primary care providers for any problem involving the eye, whether it be visual function, disease, or trauma. As such, optometrists will be working with other primary care providers and specialists in this rapidly evolving model of the interprofessional team approach.
Don’t let your traditional optometric shadowing experience limit your perspective about how optometrists will function in the future. In fact, you never know where this doctor of optometry degree might take you. Be ready by considering a program that offers interprofessional education. Having this specific educational training will make you that much more valuable to your own future.
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Published by Jane Ann Munroe, OD, Assistant Dean of Admissions, SCCO
I wanted to be an optometrist when I was only 10 years old. Why? I had some kind of geeky fascination with eyeglass frames, and was obsessed with getting a pair of my own. In my situation, having perfect eyesight was a distinct disadvantage, so I had to hatch a plan.
After repeated intense squinting while looking at the blackboard, I approached my teacher and lied with conviction, complaining that I couldn’t see. This report got me first to the school nurse and then finally on to an optometrist for an eye exam, where I tried my best Mr. Magoo impression to no avail.
I would have to wait two more long years until the gods finally smiled on me when, by some miracle, I acquired enough astigmatism to warrant my first bona fide pair of prescription eyeglasses!
Along with my love of people and wanting to take care of them, subsequent visits to the optometrist and shadowing, I sealed the deal—optometry was now officially what I wanted to do with my life.
I made first contact with the Southern California College of Optometry when I was in 8th grade. My older sister had a newly minted driver’s license and so I coerced her into driving me all the way from our home in La Mirada to Los Angeles, SCCO’s then-home. After a master planning effort to plot out our route on a paper map folded in 8 places, we arrived at SCCO where my sister quickly surmised that I didn’t have an appointment with an admissions advisor. She called me a loser, drove me all the way back home and the next day, phoned to help make the requisite appointment.
I entered high school in the late 1960’s (ouch, that hurt) when young females wanted to be anything but what I’d chosen as my newly dedicated pursuit—a science geek. I wore thick horn-rimmed black eyeglass frames (told you I was serious) and hung around chemistry lab after class. This was at a time when women just did not pursue careers in science and being the tomboy that I was, that was fine with me. This trend continued right through into undergrad, attending many classes where I was the only female--bespectacled or not--in the class. At a recent high school reunion, many of my classmates still remember me as the science geek with the blinders on—many envious of my joy and passion for my future profession.
I graduated from SCCO in 1977. Looking back with 40 years of experience as an optometrist, I am awed to know that I chose this wonderful profession way-back-when and with only my juvenile perspective to inform me. In 1977 when I graduated from optometry school, the profession began a series of major changes to its practice scope: securing the rights to use diagnostic drugs (dilating drops), securing the rights to prescribe therapeutic drugs (huge change!), being recognized as physicians by the federal government and treating glaucoma. In some US states, optometry has made even bigger strides into minor surgery, use of lasers, hospital privileges...etc. If I had the opportunity to go back and make another choice and knowing what I do today about health care and my own hardwiring, I’d make the same choice for optometry--nobody loves this profession more than I do. http://www.ketchum.edu/index.php/about/administration-directory
I grew up with optometry and now it’s your turn to inherit its future. That’s what this blog is about—getting you into optometry school and I am just the person to help you achieve this goal. We’re going to talk about the admissions process, how to prepare to take the OAT, how to be a competitive applicant, how to prepare to interview, to name a few. We’re going to talk about SCCO, student life and what it’s like to be an optometric intern. I am very persuasive, motivating and I am completely sold on optometry as the best profession in health care. I speak from experience!
Get ready to dialogue. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and please, chime in on discussions. I want to know what kind of help you need. You got this!
View all posts by Jane Ann Munroe, OD, Assistant Dean of Admissions, SCCO