Written by Sophie Borho (1st year), Dan Stasiuk (1st year)
Dr. Jonathan Arnel is an optometrist in Tillsonburg who owns his own practice and is also the Managing Assessor for the Canadian Assessment of Competencies in Optometry, and thanks to CAOS, we were able to take a tour of Dr. Arnel’s clinic! He was generous to also treat us to supper.
Dr. Arnel has one exam lane in his office, a dispensary, and he edges his own lenses in-office. After working and shadowing doctors in bigger offices with a large dispensary staff, it showed us a new dimension of optometry to see that Dr. Arnel makes his patients’ glasses himself. He said it’s super beneficial to have his own edging machines for when patients need updated lenses since patients can simply wait 15 minutes for their lenses to be changed, instead of waiting days for them to be sent to a lab. Dr. Arnel even traced a frame and edged a lens as an example for us for fun.
We got to look at a few optical coherence tomography cases, such as branch vein occlusions and asymmetric cupping. These were very interesting and made us look forward to learning more about retinal diseases in future courses.
We then went for supper and talked with Dr. Arnel about his experience owning a practice. He started as an associate in London but bought the Tillsonburg clinic a year after graduation. Dr. Arnel recommended setting up in a small-medium sized town close to a referral centre for procedures. However, northern Ontario is a good option for those wanting more responsibility and a wider scope of practice. We also discussed current events such as the board exams and the challenges facing optometrists from COVID-19 along with the OHIP job action. The top piece of advice Dr. Arnel had for us was to master refraction!
We truly enjoyed our time with Dr. Arnel. We are incredibly grateful for the learning opportunity and look forward to further networking with Dr. Arnel.