Stronger Together: A Message from the UOA Board President
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
As summer comes to a close, many of our families, children, students, and patients are heading back to school. It is a busy time in our personal lives and in our profession: new schedules, new routines, and plenty to prepare for.
It is also a busy time for the profession of opticianry.
Behind the scenes, the Board, committees, volunteers, and staff of United Opticians Association (UOA) are hard at work supporting opticians and advancing the profession. As I begin my term as President, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce, or reintroduce, UOA and share some of my personal thoughts about where our profession can go from here.
UOA is the national association dedicated solely to the advancement and promotion of the profession of opticianry. This organization was created by bringing together several national opticianry organizations that had worked for many years on behalf of our profession, but often separately and without a shared vision, collaboration or coordination. Bringing those voices together now creates an opportunity to build something stronger: one national organization capable of connecting opticians, state associations, industry, educators, and leaders from across the country around a common purpose.
I believe that idea is particularly important at this moment in our profession.
Next year will mark my 39th year in eye care. Over the course of that career, I have watched health professions such as physical therapy, pharmacy, nursing, physician assistant practice, and countless others strengthen their education, expand their expertise and responsibilities, and earn greater recognition within health care.
That progress did not happen simply because those professions asked to be recognized. They invested in themselves. They strengthened educational standards. They developed meaningful standards. They embraced evidence-based practices and new technologies. They demonstrated their value to patients and communities. They pursued state and national recognition legislatively. And, perhaps most importantly, they built strong professional organizations capable of bringing people together around a shared vision for their future.
There is an important lesson in history for opticianry.
We can strengthen education and professional standards. We can embrace evidence-based practices and emerging technologies. We can thoughtfully advance our responsibilities and create new opportunities for the next generation of opticians. We can better demonstrate the expertise opticians bring to eye care, health care, and our communities. And we can build greater recognition and understanding of what it means to be an Optician.
But none of that happens automatically.
Professions advance because the people within them decide that their profession is worth investing in, advocating for, and building together.
Get Involved
That is why I want to make a very simple request to every current and future optician:
Join. Participate. Get involved.
Join your state optician association. State associations are the backbone of our profession. They advocate for opticians in state legislatures and regulatory agencies, provide education, protect professional standards, build local communities, and give opticians a collective voice.
Many state associations are affiliated with United Opticians Association and include UOA membership as part of their membership structure. If your state does not currently have an active association, we would love to work with interested opticians in your state to help build one. And if your state association is not yet affiliated with UOA (we are, after all, still a relatively new national organization), join your state association, get involved, make your voice heard, and encourage your state to become part of UOA
Attend a meeting. Take a continuing education course. Volunteer for a committee. Mentor a student or apprentice. Talk to another optician about joining. Share your expertise. Bring us your ideas, and also your constructive criticism. But most importantly, become an active participant in determining where this profession goes next.
United Opticians Association will continue working for opticians and for the advancement and promotion of opticianry. But the strength of any professional association ultimately comes from the professionals who choose to be part of it.
I believe we are at an extraordinary moment of opportunity for opticianry. We can strengthen our education, elevate our professional identity, increase our recognition, and move forward.
A stronger profession ultimately means stronger communities and better care for the patients we serve.
Now is the time to move opticianry forward.
And we need you to be part of it.
I hope to see you soon, whether at your state association, at a UOA meeting, or somewhere along the way as we work together to build the future of our profession.
Stronger together.
Aarlan V. Aceto
Board President
United Opticians Association
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