Celebs and Their Eye Yoga

HOT TOPIC

Optometry Is Growing

In a recent press release, the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) reported a record-high number (2,868) of optometry school applicants for its latest (2023-2024) application cycle. The second highest number to date was 2,812 in the 2015-2016 application cycle.

ASCO also noted the following highlights:

• 7.6% increase in total number of applications (12,732 vs 11,834) compared with the 2022 to 2023 cycle. Applicants applied to an average of 4.44 schools and colleges.
• 3.4% increase in applicants as compared with the 2022 to 2023 cycle (2,868 vs 2,773)
• 4.5% increase in Black/African American applicants compared with the 2022 to 2023 cycle (140 vs 134) and a 3.6% increase in Hispanic/Latino applicants compared with the previous cycle (374 vs 361), the highest number of Hispanic/Latino applicants ever.

ASCO President Fraser Horn, OD, FAAO, said, “These results are so exciting to see, and I am thrilled that people want to enter the wonderful and meaningful profession of optometry. We are seeing the fruits of our public awareness campaign, Optometry Gives Me Life, which targets undergrads in a STEM program and shows them all that optometry can offer them as a career.”

My Two Cents

Hats off to ASCO for what appears to be a successful marketing campaign to drum up interest in this wonderful profession! Hopefully, these application numbers will continue to rise, as it appears that numerous new optometry schools are in the pipeline. I’ll discuss this more in the Can You Relate section below.

OUTSIDE THE LANE

Eye Yoga, You Say?

Legendary musician and former Beatle Paul McCartney recently revealed to The Times that he practices eye yoga to maintain his vision. Specifically, Sir James Paul McCartney is practicing Tratak Kriya, which originated in India and is a part of yoga meditation that strives to develop higher states of consciousness and spiritual awakening. The Sanskrit word “trataka” means “fix your gaze” and involves staring at an object, such as a candle flame, without blinking until tears flow. According to Sir James, these exercises help him avoid the need for glasses. They were introduced to him in India years ago, and he has actively practiced them ever since. He even demonstrates some of these techniques on YouTube.

YouTube/Oobu Joobu

The Times article also correctly highlights a 2018 study published in the International Journal of Yoga that compared visual acuity and patient refractive error in groups of patients who practiced the notorious Bates method of exercises or Trataka Yoga Kriya for 8 weeks. Quite unsurprisingly, the study concluded that neither exercise made any difference to refractive error or visual acuity.

My Two Cents

See, this is why you shouldn’t take advice from celebrities without first doing your own research—whether it’s health advice, political advice, or really anything. We shouldn’t hold these people to higher standards just because they are in the public eye. Stick to singing, Paul!

CAN YOU RELATE

I want to again thank ASCO for helping increase the applicant pool for our optometry schools. However, we can’t give them all the credit. The majority of work and applicants to schools likely come from our patient base. Consider the children to whom we prescribe and dispense their first pair of glasses, the teenagers who notice how much many of us enjoy our jobs, and the college students to whom we mention optometry as a great profession. Not a week goes by that I don’t say how incredible this career is to at least a few of my patients or their children, as they sit in the exam room and watch me hopefully help their parent or loved one have a more comfortable ocular experience. That’s the best way we can increase the number of quality applicants!

By the sound of it, we’ll need more applicants to keep the existing and new schools that appear to be on the way fully stocked with incredible future optometrists. According to my research, we have at least five new schools coming online soon, including Rocky Mountain University in Provo, Utah, which opened last year. Other new schools announced include High Point University in North Carolina, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and University of Detroit Mercy.

For those keeping score at home, this would bring the number of schools and colleges of optometry in the United States to 28 by the end of this decade. It also means there will be three colleges in Texas; two new schools in North Carolina, which at present has none; and two schools in my home state of Michigan. That’s … a lot.

Back in my day, when I entered optometry school in 2009, there were only 17 colleges of optometry. I don’t think of myself as an “old” OD, but the fact that there will be a 65% increase in the number of optometry schools since I was a first year is mind-blowing. Here’s hoping that ASCO and all of us continue to preach the gospel of optometry and that all these new students don’t dilute the eye care market!

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Fundus flavimaculatus.

Paul Hammond, OD, FAAO, @kmkoptometrypro

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“For-profit higher education is today a booming industry, feeding on the student loans handed out to the desperate.”

— Thomas Frank, American political analyst, historian, and journalist