Dispensing Optician

Lynn: Hi I'm Lynn and I’m currently working for Specsavers as a trainee dispensing optician.

Specsavers is an optometry. They are medical-focused as well as retail. So if you're coming in to see an optician they'll be doing a vision check on your eyes as well as an eye health check and your prescription for your glasses. So as a dispensing optician I would be finding something that works for them with their prescription and then getting a feel for what the expectations of this frame and lenses are as well.

I love it, yes.

So what's important about our job is the fact that we can actually read prescriptions and then also we can do certain functions of the optometrist to help out. We can be dilating the pupils, we can be doing visual fields or perhaps even a pre-test.

So I work with the optometrists as well as dispensing opticians and the optical assistants as well. The optical assistants don't have all the knowledge that the dispensing opticians have.

I work eight hours a day and I’m rostered on between 8:30 to 6. So our work environment is quite busy. It can vary so much but a typical day would be arriving customers in for their eye tests. Also you could be pre-testing, doing visual fields, maybe even a bit of admin work in between.

You need lots of patience in this role because you'll be dealing with lots and lots of customers and just a passion for medical. It can be stressful if you've got like challenging customers in front of you, say it's like maybe a language barrier or you've got to problem solve a lot of the time, especially when someone has a problem with their glasses - you may have to work out what's the best for this customer.

I like that I get to interact with different people from all walks of life and then also the joys that I get from this job is like when you prescribe glasses for the first time, whether it be to an adult or to a kid, that always gets me excited because kids show their emotions more than adults and they'll be like, wow, I can see and that's what the whole drama has been about, you know.

To get into this job you don't necessarily need to have experience. You start as optical assistant and then from there they will take you through all the steps and they put you on all the courses. Courses are provided through ACOD which is Australian Dispensing Optician. So you're working full time as you study and the courses are all online. The duration of the course is up to two years. Once you've completed it, you can register yourself as a dispensing optician.

It's constantly learning new things and the new medical terminology and things evolve so quickly. There's new equipment that comes out and these frames that come out and fashion keeps changing. It's those sort of things that really keeps me engaged and interested. It definitely just drives me.

The medical environment always needs people so this is a really good role. If you're passionate about medical, do it.