A little over two years ago, pre-pandemic, New England College of Optometry (NECO) president and CEO Howard Purcell, OD, says he noticed that many students who were doing exceptionally well in the didactic portion of the optometry program were not attending class.

“...Today’s students grew up in an on-demand digital world, and many of them wanted something similar from their education. And others learn differently, and want to engage in the content in this way.”

Add that 33 states do not have an optometry school, and Dr. Purcell’s desire to increase recognition of the optometric profession, and he and his NECO colleagues began planning an optional hybrid optometry program for the almost 130-year-old school.

“...I want to stress that the hybrid program would not be a PowerPoint online program,” he says. “Clinic training would be done face-to-face and live, with the idea of creating satellite NECO clinics, or Clinical Homes, in the practices of key optometric leaders, who would become members of, and train with the NECO faculty. The hope is to reach students in states that have no optometry schools and encourage practice in rural areas where there is significant need and not a high percentage of optometrists.”

To get the hybrid program in motion, Dr. Purcell says NECO partnered with Noodle (noodle.com ), an online program management (OPM) learning network. The distance learning program, proposed to be called the Hybrid OD, will cost the same as in-person education to start and will enroll 25 students in the first class, adding 10 students every year for a total of 55 students per hybrid program.

“We are working on preparing all the necessary documents and information for the Accreditation Council on Optometric Education and the New England Commission of Higher Education,” Dr. Purcell notes. “...Any launch of this program is contingent upon receiving full accreditation from the appropriate accrediting bodies.” OM