What is the public reception like for the career of optometrist?

Question

Do people need eye doctors?
Do people like their eye doctors?
Should I look into becoming one?

Answer 1

Yes, people need eye doctors if they want corrective lenses or if there is something wrong with their eyes.

It's easier to become an optometrist than an opthamologist. Most optometrists aren't on call, and their machines tell them most of what they need to know to write you a prescription for glasses or contact lenses. They are trained to recognize diseases and abnormalities, but not to fix them, so they can refer you to the right kind of doctor if they find something suspicious. Optometrists do interact with people all day long, so you should be fairly sociable. Because visiting an optometrist isn't stressful for most people (no painful procedures are performed), people tend not to dread their checkups, and if the optometrist is pleasant or interesting, then they even enjoy their visits. The income is quite good, and the stress level is fairly low.