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Optometry or Ophthalmology?

Do you believe one is better than the other? If so, in what aspects? #medicine #optometry #ophthalmology

optometry ophthalmology
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Molly’s Answer

It depends on what you want in terms of life style, work/life balance, education, family planning, etc. I am an optometrist. I thought about going to medical school, but wanted to be done with school earlier and didn't want the stress of surgery or an on-call schedule. Optometry is a very legislative field and some states are not able to practice full scope of optometry. To be honest, if I had to do it again, I would have considered medical school and ophthalmology. There are too many legislative and corporate hoops to jump through as an optometrist and I feel like I sold myself short. Additionally, Optometry school is very expensive--I have just about as much student loan debt as any ophthalmologist, but make a fraction of their income. I've worked closely with ophthalmologists since graduating, most new grads are respectful of optometrists; however, many still look down upon you and your education. Always happy to discuss more :)

Molly recommends the following next steps:

Consider what you want out of life outside your job? Do you want a family? If so, are you willing to be patient and away from your family during medical school/residency training?
What will your student loan debt be after undergrad? If zero--then you could go either way! Compare/contrast your top medical school costs with optometry school costs and then compare that to average income for both fields once fully trained.
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Gabriela’s Answer

In my opinion, optometry offers a better work/life balance. You will be on call less, have no surgical cases to handle. However, the income is far less.
The answer to this question depends on how you envision your future and how important that balance is to you.
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Dan’s Answer

Ophthalmology is a higher order field than optometry. An ophthalmologist is a physician (medical doctor), they deal with more severe disease processes than optometry. They are both "doctors" but ophthalmologist outrank optometrist by far. It is also a substantially harder field to make it into due to countless academic filters.
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