My Journey as an Optometrist

When I first graduated with my Optometry degree, there was a wave of optimism in my mind that I would be helping a lot of people with their eyes. However, this was stunted to a certain extent when I started working in UK with an optical chain outlet. It dawned on me that working as an Optometrist in a commercial setting is way different to working in a hospital setting. While you still more or less provide most of the optometric services that you have learnt in University, you are also obligated to work on the economics of the field and consider monetary needs of your employer. As a result, some sort of clinical cannibalism had to be done. An eye test that would normally take 30 - 40 minutes to complete had to be done in less then 15 minutes. I then learnt that I need to be more cohesive in my routine and be more picky on the routine that I should do and not do for the benefit of my patients and even if I do pick up an abnormality, I won't have the luxury of further diagnosis but to refer the patient on to the Hospital for further investigation. Working in the hospital however was absolutely more satisfying for the Optometrist in me, since you are exposed to more clinical practices (albeit at lower remuneration). I was thankful for that short stint that I had at the hospital as I managed to sample the experience of working in both a commercial and clinical setting in the UK.

With high hopes, I returned to Malaysia to start my private practice in Optometry. My first few month totally shattered me. I knew that by returning to Malaysia, I would have to take things slow as setting up a full optometric service opticians would cost a lot of money and would have to be done in phases. However, what I could not take was the total lacking of public awareness of what an Optometrist does. The general public had no idea what an Optometrist was and what we could offer to them as compared to the grandfather optician or qualified opticians in the field. Most treat an optical outlet like buying a pair of shoes, they only come in expecting a pair of glasses and nothing else. Even the big chains do not offer much primary eye care services but are totally retail orientated (even till now). Some of my patient didn't even know that there is a need to take up a degree course to become an Optometrist. While some even thought that you do not need a qualification to test eyes.

For the first few years of practice I had been scolded many times by my patients when I informed them of probable eye disease that they may have. The reaction that was given to me was always the same that is I am not a doctor and have no right telling them they have any eye condition and that they only wanted me to provide them with a pair of glasses and nothing else. Of course on every case I bit the bullet and insisted that further examination should be done before any glasses could be dispensed. Most times I would be reprimanded severely and with the patient walking out of my practice in fume.

8 years on, I persevered, adding more diagnostic equipment along the way. I would say that I am a machine or two away from my ideal optometric setting. Of course, the perception of the general public towards Optometrist are starting to catch up as well. One of the major challenges that I constantly face is a psychological war that I have with myself, one part of me tells me it is economically not sound to invest in diagnostic machinery that you could hardly charge since the public are still much ignorant about what we can do and of course the only way to convince them would be to give them full service at nominal or no charge, the optometrist side of me tells me to push for it since its what an  optometrist should do. Of course the optometrist side of me wins at most times but of course the economics side of me dictates the pace of upgrading.

Did I regret coming back to Malaysia to practice? No, because I believe that what i do here means more to the patients that I see now (even if they may not realise it) then back in UK in which the patients already expect such services in the first place.

Although full Optometric facilities in a private practice setting is hardly to be seen in abundance in Malaysia, I am hopeful that one day it would be THE norm.

I for one is almost getting there....