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What's it Really Like to be an Optometrist? (airs 9/16/12 on Work with Marty Nemko)

When I was selecting the careers for U.S. News' Best Careers feature, optometrist ranked #1.  It excelled in success rate with customers, salary, prestige, and quality of life.

On Sep. 16, 2012 edition of Work with Marty Nemko, I'll talk with top optometrist and U.C. Berkeley adjunct instructor, Dr. Larry Sarver about what it's really like to be an optometrist. Planned questions: 

What might surprise an educated person about what it's really like to be an optometrist?

What, in the end, differentiates the excellent clinician from the mediocre one?

I'd imagine the best ways to develop good clinical judgment is to intern with a great clinician and then join his or her practice and ask for lots of input. Is that correct?

Give me an example or two of where clinical judgment is critical and not easy?

Do you think cost-control pressures will move states to allow opticians to do refractions? Or the machines (which some optometrists only half-jokingly refer to as "random number generators?"

In the 2nd half of the show, I'll invite listeners to call in for a Three-Minute Workover, in which I try to help callers solve their work woes. I intersperse my favorite new career tips. 

The show will air Sep. 16, 2012 at 11 am.

Work with Marty Nemko is heard Sundays from 11 am to noon on 91.7 FM, KALW, San Francisco

Marty Nemko was called "job coach extraordinaire" by U.S. News and "The Bay Area's best career coach" by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. He has written 20 essays in TIME's Ideas section, and 1240 for PsychologyToday.com. Previously, his career column appeared for six years in the San Francisco Chronicle and then wrote The Big Idea continuing series on WashingtonPost.com and the Working it Out column on TheAtlantic.com. In his 30th year as a career and education advisor, Marty Nemko has served 5,400 clients and enjoys a 96% client-satisfaction rate. He is a part-time instructor of medical students at the UCSF School of Medicine.