The matter at hand is not whether or not optometrists should be allowed to perform laser surgical procedures.  That ship has already sailed as our Virginia politicians foolishly legislated this new privilege into existence.  We get it… the dollar signs in their eyes put there by the powerful optometry lobby clouded their collective foresight.  

Rather, the debate here is over whether or not optometrists should be held to the same training standards that MD ophthalmologists are held to in terms of the necessary mentorship and supervision required to perform laser procedures independently on the flesh and blood citizens of the state of Virginia. 

As currently written, the certification that will be required of optometrists to perform laser surgeries does not require any training on actual real human beings.  On the other hand, MDs typically perform dozens if not hundreds of laser surgeries as resident physicians; and always WITH supervision.  As others have stated, a human sitting at a laser is vastly different than a plastic eye.  The comparison is simply not even close.

That so many ODs have come here to vehemently support the legislation “as written” shows us that they truly don’t even know what they don’t know.  But why should we expect otherwise?  They don’t have anything close to what resembles the surgical training of their MD colleagues.  

This has nothing to do with “access” to care.  This is not rural Montana, there are a sufficient number of ophthalmologists here to serve the needs of Virginians.  The legislation succeeded because of the stronger lobbying power of optometry.    

It truly is a disservice to our shared mission of protecting the vision and eye health of our patients.  Honestly, it's incredibly dismaying that so many optometrists feel they don’t need any supervised training whatsoever on an actual REAL person prior to performing these procedures completely independently.  This would NEVER EVER EVER happen or be allowed on the MD side of the curtain of any procedural discipline.  It simply does not happen.

So again, the question remains: why is it okay for optometrists to be held to a vastly lower training standard than their MD surgeon colleagues?  I challenge any OD reading this -- please , enlighten me--- give me a compelling argument.  Heck, any argument.  Why the resistance to needing actual, real, legitimate training?  How does this put you out so much?  Why the opposition to this?  Please provide a good reason why you don't need any supervised laser procedures on a human being.   If you want to be surgeons, then train like a surgeon.  The legislation, as stands, is unsafe and inadequate.