For my community connection assignment I have decided to interview dr. Tansley, who works as an optometrist at Burke Mountain Optometry. I interviewed him through email. I chose to interview Dr. Tansley because when I’m older I would like to be an optometrist as well. I learned many things from my interview with Dr. Tansley including how you can change people’s lives and how they are able to see the world. This connects to me because I enjoy helping others and being an optometrist means that you can help people improve their life’s quality. Another thing I learned is that it takes a lot of hard work to become an optometrist, but it is worth it because it is a very rewarding job.
Here are the questions I asked and the responses I received from Dr. Tansley:
What are the roles and responsibilities of an optometrist?
An optometrist is a primary eye care provider. We do a number of different things including routine eye exams, ocular health assessments, contact lens fittings, treatment of some eye diseases, foreign body removal from the cornea and conjunctiva. We refer patients to an ophthalmologist for treatment of major eye disease or any time that they need a surgical procedure.
What obstacles did you face in order to get where you are today?
The largest obstacle to becoming an optometrist is getting into optometry school. In Canada there are 2 optometry schools. One is in Waterloo, Ontario and the other is in Montreal. Classes in Montreal are only in French. Class size at Waterloo is now 90 students a year and was only 60 students a year when I was at Waterloo. There are usually close to 1000 people applying for those spots. There are a number of schools in the United States but this is a very expensive option. The next biggest obstacle was starting a new office from scratch. It takes at least 5 years to be seeing enough patients at your own office to work there full time. I was lucky and worked part time for an optometrist in Maple Ridge to help pay my bills.
What advice would you pass on to someone who is interested in optometry?
It is a very rewarding job. You can open your own clinic or you can work as an associate for someone else. If you are a female there is a lot of flexibility for taking time off when raising a family. You can set your own hours and it’s fairly low stress. The job is generally fairly routine and you are not often faced with giving someone life or death news the way a surgeon or physician would have to.
Why are you passionate about optometry?
I remember getting my first pair of glasses in grade 9. It made such a difference in what I could see. My eyes changed a lot during high school so I got to see my optometrist a couple of times a year and this got me interested in optometry as a profession. I have been an optometrist for over 36 years now. I enjoy meeting people and helping them with their vision problems. I have seen patients who were young children in elementary school when I first started and now I am seeing their young children. It’s very neat to see families change over the years.
What is your favorite part about being an optometrist?
I think my favourite thing about being an optometrist is just being able to help people see better. You are able to help change their quality of life especially older people with cataracts. I feel that we do provide a valuable service to our patients.
How did you become an optometrist?
Becoming an optometrist is not as easy as it sounds. In high school you need to be pretty good in math and science. You have to do at least 3 years in a science program at university meeting all the optometry prerequisites. You also have to do an optometry admission test and then compete with a number of other qualified people to actually get into optometry school. The optometry program is 4 years long and after graduation you are now part of what I think is the best job ever. Information about optometry and becoming an optometrist can be found on the Waterloo website – uwaterloo.ca/optometry-vision-science.
Reflection
After this interview I am even more interested about becoming an optometrist because I now know more about it than I did before, and it seems like a great and interesting job where you get to meet lots of people and help to make them see the world more clearly. I know that many people can agree that having glasses or contact lenses have impacted their lives in such a positive way. Now that I have interviewed Dr. Tansley, I know of the two optometry schools in Canada, which is helpful because now I know which school I will try and get into in the future so that I can become an optometrist as well. I feel that this job suits me well because i enjoy helping others and optometrists help others with their vision, which changes their lives.
