Men and women in optometry. II. Attitudes toward career and family.

BACKGROUND: Optometry has experienced a dramatic upward shift in the percentage of women entering the profession during the past 20 years. Our survey assessed the mechanisms for sustaining balance in professional and personal roles used by women optometrists and how these mechanisms may differ from those of their male colleagues. METHODS: A survey questionnaire was mailed to a large nationwide random sample of optometrists, composed of equal numbers of men and women. RESULTS: Data were analyzed from 353 men and 358 women; margin of error was +4%. Most of the respondents indicated they derived personal satisfaction from their career. A majority of both groups did not indicate that lack of time for their career was a source of frustration. However, significantly more women than men indicated some frustration in pursuing those activities that lead to career advancement. There were significant differences in response patterns of men and women about the effect of family, child care, and household work on their careers. CONCLUSIONS: Both men and women optometrists are satisfied with their careers and neither group feels compelled to choose between career and family. Optometrists do not fit into one pattern, but instead make individualized career choices on the basis of needs.

Men and women in optometry. I: Economic issues and professional profiles.

BACKGROUND: Optometry is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of women entering practice. How is this demographic shift likely to affect the profession? This survey was designed to describe current economic and professional profiles of men and women in optometry. METHODS: A survey questionnaire was mailed to a nationwide random sample of optometrists, equal numbers of men and women. RESULTS: Data were analyzed from 353 men and 356 women. Margin of error: +/- 4 percent. On average, women optometrists are younger than men, work 9.4 percent fewer hours, and spend 8.1 percent more time away from their regular professional duties. In 1991 men's optometry income averaged $72,200; women's, $54,400. The income differential persisted after adjusting for age, practice setting, work week, time off, and specialty. Men are more likely to be in solo practice; women in group practice or salaried positions. Similar proportions of men and women are employed in corporate optometry. Few gender differences exist in patient services or other professional activities. CONCLUSIONS: Women optometrists have not yet gained economic equity with men. Male-female similarities in practice patterns suggest that optometry is unlikely to experience major changes in consequence of more women entering the profession.

Optometric clinical abbreviations.

BACKGROUND: Standard clinical abbreviations useful to optometric practitioners are provided. This list contains terms that should be used in the examination, diagnosis and management of patients and serve in inter- and intra-professional communications.

Priorities for optometric education: outcomes of the curriculum conference.

The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) and the American Optometric Association (AOA) jointly sponsored a national meeting in July 1992 for the primary purpose of developing a curriculum model for optometric education. The conference was the third in the "Summit in Optometric Education" series and attracted 138 national and international leaders representing organized optometry and academia. This paper discusses the conference framework and presents outcomes as determined by conferee summary reports, postconference surveys, and interviews. There is evidence that the conference produced several successful outcomes that could benefit future educational planners. The task of designing a curriculum with learning objectives, using the innovative outcomes-based education (OBE) approach, was achieved. The conferees identified the importance of refocusing optometry graduate programs to include a greater emphasis in the biological sciences in order to produce educators and researchers for the changing profession. In addition the workshops on alternate teaching strategies, including problem-based learning, raised awareness amongst educators and practitioners of nontraditional options for presenting an ever-expanding information base within the confines of a 4-year professional curriculum.

Time for educational reform.

As the profession of optometry evolves, complementary changes in the educational process must occur if graduates are to be fully prepared to practice primary eye care. A national conference to address these educational priorities including curriculum design, faculty manpower and financial resources has recently been held. The need for educational reform facing the profession is outlined.

Vision care in a juvenile detention facility.

Optometry plays a key role in the provision of vision care services at the San Bernardino Juvenile Hall (SBJH), where 400 juvenile offenders, aged 12 to 18 years, are incarcerated. This program in San Bernardino, California, was established in 1979 by a practicing optometrist with support from federal, state, and local funding agencies. It operates as an outreach clinical program to train senior students of the Southern California College of Optometry for professional practice opportunities in a nontraditional setting. An important component of the SBJH program is an ongoing clinical research program to study the relation between vision problems and juvenile delinquency, and the effect of vision training on the rehabilitation of delinquent youths. Preliminary data indicate a reduction in the recidivism rate for this population group.

Siderophore-mediated iron uptake in different strains of Anabaena sp.

Anabaena sp. strain 6411, which produces the dihydroxamate siderophore schizokinen to facilitate iron uptake, is also capable of using the related siderophore aerobactin. The two siderophores compete for the same iron transport system, but there is a markedly higher affinity for ferric schizokinen than for ferric aerobactin. The trihydroxamate siderophore ferrioxamine B is far less effective as an iron donor in this organism. Anabaena sp. strain 7120 appears to be closely related to strain 6411. It synthesizes schizokinen as its major siderophore and shows rates of iron uptake from ferric schizokinen, ferric aerobactin, and ferrioxamine B which are similar to those observed with strain 6411. Anabaena cylindrica Lemm. 7122 and 1611, on the other hand, differ from strain 6411. In contrast to schizokinen, the hydroxamate which they produce in response to iron starvation cannot be extracted with water from the organic layer and does not support the growth of the siderophore auxotroph Arthrobacter flavescens JG-9. Strain 7122 can use its endogenous siderophore or schizokinen to promote iron uptake, but at 50-fold-lower rates than are observed with Anabaena sp. strain 6411 or 7120.

Blur-induced changes in the visual evoked potential.

Binocular vision has several advantages as compared with monocular vision. In this study, objective recordings of binocular functioning were studied with visual evoked potentials (VEP's). Lenses from plano through +1.50 D were added to reduce acuity monocularly and binocularly. Results indicate that the VEP, while sensitive to binocularly induced blur, does not reflect the changes in binocular vision which are produced by monocularly induced blur. The high contrast of the visual stimulus pattern (97%) may be responsible for the absence of attenuation during binocular viewing while one eye is blurred.

The effect of light flashing at 9 Hertz on rivalry suppression.

The translid binocular interactor (TBI), which presents binocularly out-of-phase lights flashing at 9 Hz, was designed to reduce suppression of amblyopes. To determine the effect of such flashing lights on rivalry suppression, subjects who showed strong suppression during binocular rivalry were exposed to a modified form of the TBI for a total of 2 2/3 hr over 4 days. A similar group of subjects was exposed to steady binocular light. The modified TBI had no effect on rivalry suppression; the changes in suppression that did occur were equivalent in the two groups.

The visual evoked response to word stimuli in the visual fields.

The visual evoked response (VER) has been considered an objective indicator of visual and perceptual processing, although as yet there is no clear evidence of a relationship between visual recognition and electrophysiological activity. The present study was performed to determine whether VER's can provide indications of differences in responses to word stimuli presented in different parts of the visual field. Additionally, evidence was sought as to whether the left and right hemispheres process visual information symmetrically. In 20 adult subjects with normal binocular vision, VER's were recorded simultaneously from left and right hemispheres in response to the repeated presentation of a three-letter word in each of 7 visual field locations. VER's of any subject in response to one stimulus site were consistent and repeatable; intersubject variation was large. For subject comparison, amplitude of VER was the measured response. No significant or consistent amplitude characteristics were identified that related to recognition of the stimulus. From comparison of responses to the different field locations, central stimulation (at 0 degrees) evoked the largest peak-to-trough amplitude (X=8.21 uV+/- 2.56). Amplitudes tended to be larger at 4 degrees than at 2 degrees from center; left field stimulation tended to give larger amplitudes than right field; however, these trends were larger than from the left, this difference was not valid since 11 subjects had larger right hemisphere responses, whereas 9 had larger amplitudes from the left hemisphere. Thus, the study suggests that the VER reflects some net electrical activity from the recording sites that may be traced to an external sensory stimulus and shows that this activity is symmetrical for each hemisphere.

Hysterical amblyopia: electrodiagnostic and clinical evaluation.

Six hysterical amblyopes and six controls, matched for age and sex, were evaluated as to acuity, color vision, visual fields, dark adaptometry and visual evoked responses (VER). Although the hysterical amblyopes all showed reduced acuity and constricted visual fields, no statistically significant differences were found for the dark adaptation final thresholds when compared to the control group. VERs to stimuli which were varied with respect to brightness, color, frequency and pattern, did not statistically differentiate hysterical amblyopes from the control group. The results appear to indicate the intactness of the visual pathways up to and including cortical area 17 in hysterical amblyopia.