With a high degree of education and planning, the odds are in your favor

It’s not clear whether the above quote, often attributed to Charles Darwin, was said by Darwin himself. Regardless of the author, it should resonate with any practicing O.D. Peruse any O.D. Internet group, and you’re sure to see comments about telemedicine, private equity, subscription contact lenses, the seemingly increasing number of optometry schools and corporate mergers, among others. These topics all center on doom and gloom. They project a front-and-center attitude that the golden age of optometry is over, and those entering the profession will experience disappointment and catastrophic failure.

BE WARY OF “DEATH” CLAIMS

Adding “history repeats itself,” to our original quote, let’s return to the “golden age” in, perhaps, the early 1950s when optometry was often practiced in conjunction with jewelry stores. Or in the ’70s, when doctors were content fitting vialed contact lenses (and fearing the death of the profession from auto-refractors). Or, let’s look at the ’80s and ’90s, which brought the next wave of the “death of optometry” with refractive surgery.

What have we learned from the quote above? It’s simple: Darwin (or whoever we attribute the quote to) was right. Those who didn’t adapt likely didn’t survive.

“But Gary, this is different!”

Yes, it is!

ACTIVE RESPONSE TO CHANGE

But what’s not different is our response to the changes. There’s not a polite, collegial way to state this other than the hackneyed preface of, “with all due respect” to some of my O.D. colleagues. It’s quite evident that there are those O.D.s who are excellent at posting tales of woe and complaints. This reactionary mass is full of angst and short on solutions. This group sees (for example) telemedicine as the next nail in the coffin of our profession (even though the coffin is running out of space for more nails).

Fortunately, not all O.D.s think this way. I’ve been blessed to have a group of forward-thinking clients who analytically and sequentially work with us to think through all of the above challenges. From there, they create individualized, concrete actionable plans to figure out how they will succeed in the face of the upcoming changes, instead of just chronically whining about them and standing idly by while the changes continue.

LEARN AND TREAD LIGHTLY

Here’s a historical example of how proactive doctors handle change. Disposable lenses were supposed to kill the contact lens industry. Instead, early on, a few doctors did their homework, treaded lightly, but early, with the lenses and started using them right away. Fast forward about 30 years, and those practices are still some of the healthiest contact lens practices on the planet.

Using the current example of telemedicine, you can do the same thing. First, learn everything you can about it. Then, tread lightly, and see how you can make it work in your practice. The next step — do it! Run into the fray! You can certainly take a “wait and see” attitude, but again, historically, if you approach these decisions with a high degree of education and planning, the odds of succeeding are in your favor.

My key message to my colleagues: Change is coming. Change will keep coming. Stop complaining about it and start acting on it. OM

DR. GERBER is the president of the Power Practice, a company specializing in making optometrists more profitable. Learn more at www.powerpractice.com , or call Dr. Gerber at (888) 356-4447.