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OD student group pledges to advance the profession
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SAN DIEGO – American Optometric Student Association President James Deom told the American Optometric Association House of Delegates that the students “want to leave the profession better than we found it, and you have my word that is exactly what we intend on doing.
“The students are ready and willing to advocate and fight to advance our profession,” he said at Optometry’s Meeting. “We need you alongside of us in the struggle.”
Deom has personally lobbied in Washington and taken several mission trips in addition to raising tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research, Optometry Giving Sight and Optometry Cares. He said he is pursuing a master’s in public health in the hopes that it will help him understand the Affordable Care Act.
Deom urged House of Delegates members to reach out to their local schools, invite students to their meetings, urge them to join the local associations and establish scholarships.
“As you build relationships with your local politicians, engage students to do this with you,” he said. “I encourage you and your societies to become sustaining members of the AOSA. With your support we hope to offer more opportunities to students to travel to these meetings and grow into the profession and pay it forward when they are sitting in these chairs in a few short years.
“We are a small profession, and if we want to continue to grow, we must help each other out,” Deom concluded. “This is a great way to do it. We are here and we are ready. We are much stronger together than apart.”