Emerging Trends in Optometric Clinical Education and Applied Research

• There will be a decrease in dependency upon large campus-based facilities for the clinical training of optometric students. Driven by economic considerations and the need for greater diversity of clinical experiences, community-based training sites will replace the need for large single-purpose and costly campus-based clinics.
• It will be imperative that the private optometric colleges reduce the cost of campus-based clinical education in order to keep student tuition competitive.
• Cost-effective technology assisted patient simulation laboratories and other innovative means will provide early clinical training for beginning optometric students rather than the large campus clinics.
• Smaller academic eye centers of excellence staffed by college faculty will be positioned proximal to the college of optometry. These centers will operate incentive based faculty compensation plans that integrate student and resident training.
• Interdisciplinary clinical education will emerge as the new standard.
• The Department of Veterans Affairs, the Armed Forces and the U.S. Public Health Service will continue as a major resource for clinical training of students and residents. Federally-sponsored fellowship programs will be expanded.
• Private practice externships and other extern sites will continue as a component of clinical training for students and residents. However, site selection and evaluation criteria will become more stringent.
• Private practice externships will emerge as the vital resource to provide students with practice management experience.
• There will be an increased emphasis on clinical education in low vision, pediatrics and traumatic brain injury and associated vision problems.
• A national clearinghouse and placement service for externships in optometry will be established. Through the clearinghouse, all institutions of optometric education will fully share in the enormous national resource and each site will be appropriately and fully utilized. National standards for externships will be more stringently applied and will lead to accreditation for participating sites.
• Clinical faculty will increasingly take advantage of the large and diverse clinic population to expand clinical research in contact lenses, ophthalmic pharmaceuticals, traumatic brain injury, strabismus and refractive error.
• Schools and colleges will formally recognize community-engaged scholarship and it will apply to the review, promotion and tenure processes for community-engaged faculty members.
  Medicare regulation pertaining to student participation in billable services will require a change in the curriculum model and nomenclature. Current student fourth professional year will be changed to first residency year. More information can be found in: Development of a New Clinical Training Model.