Enter your location at the top of this page to find opportunities at health organizations near you. Being involved at any level will help you figure out if this area is something you're interested in!

Find a volunteer position in health and medicine.

Read up on the courses, requirements, and timelines for getting into medical school. Get prepared early and better your chances of acceptance!

Learn what you can do to prepare for medical school.

Empathy is an integral part of our human nature. It is a skill ingrained in us, but it can also be learned and improved upon. Explore ways to develop your empathy and be more successful in life.

Watch a TED Talk about empathy.

Find a local optometrist or optometry office and ask if you can talk to them about what their work is like. Prepare some questions and research beforehand so that you can make the most of the opportunity.

Interview someone who works at an optometry office.

Choose a few of these stories about mystery medical cases and how they were solved. Does assessing symptoms and doing research to figure out diagnoses seem like something you'd like to do?

Explore hard-to-solve medical cases.

Watch a short video about the refractive errors that negatively affect sight and learn how glasses help to fix those errors. Are you interested in providing these solutions to people?

Learn how glasses help us see.

Optometrists

Diagnose, manage, and treat conditions and diseases of the human eye and visual system. Examine eyes and visual system, diagnose problems or impairments, prescribe corrective lenses, and provide treatment. May prescribe therapeutic drugs to treat specific eye conditions.

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Second Interest High-Point

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

First Interest High-Point

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

Third Interest High-Point

Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations

Health Diagnosing and Treating Practitioners

Examine eyes, using observation, instruments, and pharmaceutical agents, to determine visual acuity and perception, focus, and coordination and to diagnose diseases and other abnormalities, such as glaucoma or color blindness.

Analyze test results and develop a treatment plan.

Prescribe, supply, fit and adjust eyeglasses, contact lenses, and other vision aids.

Prescribe medications to treat eye diseases if state laws permit.

Educate and counsel patients on contact lens care, visual hygiene, lighting arrangements, and safety factors.

Consult with and refer patients to ophthalmologist or other health care practitioner if additional medical treatment is determined necessary.

Provide patients undergoing eye surgeries, such as cataract and laser vision correction, with pre- and post-operative care.

Prescribe therapeutic procedures to correct or conserve vision.

Provide vision therapy and low-vision rehabilitation.

4-well lens holders

8-well lens flippers

Adult fixation targets

Amsler grids

Autorefractors

Binocular indirect ophthalmoscopes

Biomicroscopes

Broken wheel visual acuity cards

Child fixation targets

Clear 20 diopter condensing lenses

Clear 78 diopter condensing lenses

Color vision testing devices

Combination refractor keratometers

Combined cover paddle occluders

Contact lens loupes

Corneal pachymeters

Corneal topographers

Desktop computers

Fixation cards

Fundus cameras

Golf club spuds

Gonioscopy lenses

Halberg clips

Half nylon gripping pliers

Horizontal prism bars

HRR Hardy-Rand-Rittler plates

Hruby lenses

Ishihara plates

Lachrymal cannulae

Lachrymal dilators

Lea symbols near vision cards

Lens calipers

Lens clocks

Lensometers

Loose prisms

Mechanical stethoscopes

Multiple pin hole occluders

Multiple pinhole mask occluders

Non-contact handheld fundus lenses

Notebook computers

Ophthalmic transilluminators

Ophthalmoscopes

Optical screwdrivers

Pediatric near point cards

Personal computers

Phoroptors

Pupil diameter PD rules

Randot stereo tests

Retinal cameras

Retinoscopes

Retinoscopy racks

Scleral depressors

Single Lea symbol books

Skiascopic lens rack

Snellen eye charts

Snipe nose pliers

Sphygmomanometers

Tonometers

Trial lens sets

Wide jaw angling pliers

Worth 4-dot tests

Yellow condensing lenses

Accra Med Software Filopto

AltaPoint Data Systems AltaPoint Vision

Babcock Winx Pro

Compulink Business Systems Eyecare Advantage

Digital Healthcare OptoMize

First Insight E-Z Frame

First Insight MaximEyes

HealthLine Systems Eyecom

Insight Software My Vision Express

Intuit QuickBooks

MAX Systems Max-Gold7

MediNotes Charting Plus

Microsoft Access

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft Word

OfficeMate Software Solutions ExamWRITER

OfficeMate Software Solutions OfficeMate

Prima Systems OPTIX

Scheduling software

Universal Software Solutions VersaVision

VisionScience Software Acuity Pro

Optometrists

Overview

Career

What Optometrists Do

Other Job Titles Optometrists May Have

Tasks & Responsibilities May Include

Optometrists

Overview

Career

What Optometrists Do

Other Job Titles Optometrists May Have

Tasks & Responsibilities May Include

Education

Level of Education Attained by Optometrists

Majors Related to Career

Related Careers

Related Leaders