To the editor:

As a privately practicing, medically centered doctor of optometry, I am faced with a problem that the generation before me did not have. I am a second-generation OD who returned to my hometown in Belmont County to join my mother in practice. When she returned to the Ohio Valley to begin practice in 2003, there were 15 other privately practicing, medically based ODs. At the time of writing, Belmont County has only five.

Concerningly, access to medical care through ophthalmology is even more dire. There are two ophthalmologists who primarily practice in Belmont County and service others, including, but not limited to, patients in Guernsey, Monroe, Noble and Harrison counties.

We are advocating for Senate Bill 36 to expand the availability of medical care to more patients. Rural Ohio is facing a shortage of providers of all kinds. The passage of SB 36 would allow the same providers that you already know and trust to perform the procedures that all graduating optometrists are trained to do. The proposed procedures in SB 36 are already legalized in several surrounding states, and many doctors who live in border counties are licensed and can provide these procedures.

In my town of Barnesville, I often have the seemingly silly conversation with my patients that sounds something like this: “You know Mrs. Jones, I’m very sorry about this, but I have to refer you to one of my very busy ophthalmology colleagues for this procedure. If I had an office in West Virginia (30 miles away), I could perform this for you and take care of it very quickly. Because the current laws in Ohio restrict me to practice at a level that does not reflect the skills that I have been trained in, I’ll have to get you on his schedule. Just to warn you, this usually takes about four months.”

The passage of Senate Bill 36 would allow qualified optometrists to share the workload of an increasingly burdened field of ophthalmology. Patients will benefit from decreased wait times and growing access to necessary procedures.

Ohio needs to join the several states that have changed legislation so that our state can continue to be at the forefront of medical access and excellence. Currently, 24 states in our country have a higher scope of practice and legislation that allows trained optometrists to perform minor, in-office laser procedures, injectables and removal of benign lid lesions.

Ohio State University’s optometric curriculum has included training on all of these procedures for over a decade; yet, none of the graduating doctors are able to utilize those skills in the very state where they were acquired. This leads to the exodus of high-quality optometrists to surrounding states that allow them to practice to the level that they are trained. Ohio needs to keep our high-quality optometrists here.

Dr. Zachary Leach

Barnesville