|
|
|
|
|
||
|
EDITOR'S PAGE Our Children Are Waiting
by Rich Kirkner
I search the onerous pinkish-purple form that brings me this news for something about an eye exam OR ELSE! Nothing. Sure, healthy teeth are important when it comes to
children achieving at school. They're almost as important as healthy eyes. It's all a matter of healthy special interests. The dentists
and general practitioners have harangued our state's politicians until they wrote the law that brings me that onerous pinkish-purple form. The optometrists and ophthalmologists have not.
Of all the ways we've failed our children, failing to give them adequate vision care has to rank with the most shameful. Just about every state requires vision
screenings for school-age children. Just about every screening—three out of four, to be precise—misses vision problems, the American Foundation for Visual
Awareness says. Only half the parents of children who fail vision screenings know it. Many of them can't afford exams or don't know any better. You're probably looking
at fewer than one in 10 children getting the vision care they need. Passing state laws that require periodic eye exams—not mere vision screenings—for schoolchildren is something both optometry and ophthalmology
should be able to agree on. Instead, these two doctor groups have tussled over DPAs, TPAs and lasers. It's time for both professions—and opticianry, too—to step up to this public health problem.
Two things you can do now:
1. Join Vision USA 2000, the AOA charity that provides free eye exams and eyewear. Some 7,400 O.D.s have signed up this year. My math tells me that thousands more could join the ranks. (See "
2. Start prodding the AOA and your state association to push for laws that make eye exams mandatory for school-age children. Encourage overtures to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and opticians' and medical
organizations. It's time for a cooperative effort.
Our children are waiting. For the past two years I've had the pleasure (for a second time) of working with Chris Glenn, our managing editor. Many of you have told me that our magazine
has never been better, and Chris deserves much of the credit for that. Chris is moving to Review of Ophthalmology as editor-in-chief. Please join me in wishing him the best.
|
| | | | | | | |
We're at that point in my daughter's public school career
when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania commands that we get her a dental exam OR ELSE! We must provide documentation of this or subject her to a dentist not of our choosing, courtesy of local taxpayers.
