When Rachel Simpson and Kate Hamm entered the Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club Project Foresight Scholarship competition, they weren’t sure that their idea was exactly what the company had in mind.  The topic? “What does the future of Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club optometry look like?” The company was asking for submissions on how they can become a better workplace to attract millennials and grow for the future as both an employer of optometrists, and as a preferred practice location for patient care. 

Simpson and Hamm, then third year students at University of Missouri St. Louis, entered the $15,000 scholarship competition with a focus on what they saw as one of the biggest issues young graduates face when entering the marketplace: discrimination in pay and workplace equality between genders and ethnicities. 

They were already working hard on raising awareness of the wage gap in optometry, founding the United Optometrists Association at UMSL with a group of 8 students in January 2016. The numbers quickly grew to 55 student members at UMSL alone, with steps in place to collaborate with existing clubs or found new chapters at optometry schools across the country.

How are they tackling their goal of not just closing the wage gap, but achieving workplace equality in optometry? “Each semester, we start with a brainstorming meeting where all our members come up with ideas for how to forward the mission of the UOA. Right now, that's the UOA's greatest impact: getting future optometrists thinking of ways to close the wage gap and be better future employers. We need to always be looking for opportunities to take action to close the wage gap.”

Kate Hamm and Rachel Simpson, UMSL College of Optometry '18

Their first year as a club was focused on how to approach the wage gap from the initial job offer process. “We read that a person can fall into the wage gap starting with their very first salary at their very first job. We can learn to negotiate, if that would help close the wage gap. So that's the action we took. We asked ODs to share with us copies of job offers they'd received (with all the personal information removed) so that we could get used to seeing contracts and offers. We need to see these documents as students so that we know what is standard and what to ask for. We held a contract negotiation seminar with Dr. Mark Phebus, where we learned what parts of a job offer are open to negotiation.”

“When Kate and I entered the Walmart Project Foresight scholarship competition, the prompt was "how can Walmart attract millennial optometrists?" Which doesn't on its face seem like an opportunity to argue for equality. But that's what Kate and I did. We argued that millennials care about the wage gap in optometry, so if you close the wage gap you attract millennials. We made specific recommendations that have been shown to close the wage gap in other professions- like not allowing negotiations for starting salary so that everyone starts on equal footing; encouraging all ODs (male, female, and non binary) to take full advantage of their paid time off; and setting up a system to allow ODs to seamlessly substitute for one another, so that a business doesn't falter when the doctor takes time off for medical or maternity leave. With Walmart, we saw an opportunity to tell a major employer of optometrists what we want them to do to close the wage gap. They listened to us and said that the actions we recommended were do-able for them, and we won the scholarship. Winning is nice, but what's nicer is that it brings attention to the wage gap. We want everyone in the UOA to be looking for opportunities to shape the conversation. Make your own opportunities and make the most of them. I hope that the UOA will motivate optometry students and optometrists to take action in the interest of equality.” 

When we graduate and become ODs, we'll keep working to make optometry more equal. We have some ideas for what that will look like, but it's hard to be sure until we really get there. Since the founding member so the UOA don't graduate until 2019, it's time for us to start thinking of how to better utilize OD members in addition to student members. We'd like to work with current ODs to come up with a set of recommendations for promoting equality within one's own workplace, as well as how to advocate for workplace equality within our profession."


How Can You Get Involved?
All ODs (not just students!) can visit unitedopt.org and read up about the wage gap. “You don't have to be a woman to be affected by the wage gap, so you don't have to be a woman to join the UOA,” explains Simpson.  They especially would appreciate If optometrists would be willing to share job offers or contracts with personal and identifying information removed so that students can get more comfortable looking at optometric contracts before they sign their own. “Students need to know what ODs are being offered so that we know what to ask for and don't undervalue ourselves and contribute to the wage gap. We need to better understand the realities you're facing in the workplace. What are you seeing? What changes would you like to see? What can we do to make your workplace more equal? We would love to talk with you!”

Want more about the mission of United Optometrists Association?  I got a chance to interview Rachel and Kate for Defocus Media!

Great news! In four years when the class of 2020 graduates from optometry schools around the country, they will be 70% female for the first time in history.  But just as more women enter the profession, they are faced with some pretty challenging hurdles to overcome in healthcare.  How are they going to start their own practices in the face of mounting student loan debt? How are they going to keep patients loyal to in office doctor-patient care when faced with competition from online refractive vendors? How are they going to balance starting a career with staring a family?  Can they really have it all?

We are all lucky that we have successful and talented female doctors that have navigated the ups and downs of this profession before us to help guide us through these challenges.  One of the women that has become a true force in optometry through her passion for growing our profession and encouraging young female voices to be leaders is Dr. Bridgitte Shen Lee of Vision Optique. A Chinese American immigrant and daughter of two medical professionals, Dr. Shen Lee considered both medical and optometry school before leaving college.  She selected the University of Houston College of Optometry, and looks back on that decision with full confidence that her choice to enter optometry was one of the best she’s made in her life.  What makes her mindset on optometry different? She refuses to define her profession by what she can’t do. She’s been labelled a path-paver in optometry for owning the space of ocular aesthetics and anti-aging eyecare, embracing the fact that as an optometrist, and specifically a female optometrist, she is an expert.  “Optometry has to claim these areas as ours.  We are the experts for everything related to the eyes, but we have to claim it.”

In speaking with Dr. Shen Lee on the most recent Defocus Podcast, another really clear statement about her character comes across: she’s constantly brewing up new ideas! A quick tour of her resume will show you this isn’t a recent development.  Out of optometry school, she cold started her private practice Vision Optique in 1999 with business partner Dr. Bradley Owens.  In addition to running her practice, she founded iTravelCE  in 2010 as a way to bridge the differences in ocular healthcare between the more newly minted optometric professions of Asian countries with those of America and Europe.  She is also a distinguished speaker, working as an ambassador or consultant for Johnson and Johnson Vision Care, OCuSOFT, Essilor, Guardion Health, and most recently Shire. How does she find time for it all? “My greatest advice for young female ODs is that you can have it all, just not at the same time.” She splits her time at her practice, developing optometry’s future in dry eye and ocular aesthetics through consulting, speaking, and social media, and as a wife and mother to two daughters.  Here are some of her keys to success in balancing work and family as a female OD:

Why do men make so much more than women in our profession, even in our very first jobs where experience is on a level playing field?  Negotiating the initial salary offer is the most important thing female optometrists can do to close the gender pay gulf (gap is kind of an understatement after Review of Optometry reported a 68% gender pay difference across full-time ODs in 2015). Men are asking for more pay, right from the first offer.  In fact, studies show about 50% of male professional students negotiate their initial salary offer, but only 12.5% of female students do. So if you are wanting fair pay, the very first item on your to-do list needs to be understanding that the first offer is just that, an offer; negotiation expected.  

Why Don't Women Negotiate?

If you ask a room of successful, intelligent women this question, you'll see very similar answers.  We most often don't negotiate due to fear of offending or upsetting our future employer.  It's called the "social cost" of negotiating -- the fear that there will be backlash or that our employer's opinions of us will be negatively impacted because we countered for a higher salary.  And horrifyingly enough, studies prove those fears are real.  Women are on average judged more negatively than men for negotiating their salary, by both female and male employers.  But how you negotiate can make all the difference.  Simply asking for more pay may result in negative impressions, but research shows employers respond very favorably to females negotiating for a cause or on behalf of others.  How can you turn what you want (more pay) into an argument for mutual success for yourself and your employer?  That's the art of the successful negotiation.

What You Can Do For Them (Relational Negotiating)

Think about what your employer needs in a new doctor. Check out their website and social media accounts.  What specialty are they missing?  What (if any) marketing strategy do they have?  You are more than a warm body spinning a phoropter wheel, and the unique assets you can provide for your new employer are what will earn you that coveted paycheck.  Here are some ideas for skills you can offer during negotiation that will make you an asset worth investing in:

Now you know the parts of your optometric resume that can be key negotiating points, but how do you actually negotiate?  Speaking the language of negotiation is just as important as determining the benefits that you can offer.  The best negotiators know how to key in to what is important to the other side of the table.  Your potential employer is going to have an obvious motivating force in looking to add you as a doctor to their team:

When you are negotiating a contract, what really speaks to an employer is what you can do for them and their office. If you lead off your salary negotiation with phrases like “I want” or “I need” you may find that your offer is difficult to negotiate.  Think of the initial salary offer you were given as what your employer would pay an average candidate.  Then ask yourself, are you average? All those skills and passions that make you special and uniquely qualified for the job are things your employer wants to add value to their business. Explain to your employer how the things that you can do will grow their business and drive their revenue.  For these extra benefits that you'll be providing to them, you're asking for a compensation of $X instead due to the extra value you'll be generating to the practice as a whole compared to the average candidate.  Now you're not negotiating for you, but for the chance for you to help them.  That's a negotiation where everyone wins.

Let’s start with the typical optometry job hunt.  If you have a family member in the industry, or a good personal connection, then you may be able to bypass the actual post-graduate grueling job search. But whether you are applying with a large group of doctors where the salary is often presented as "fixed" or joining up with a doctor you already know (or that's family), talking about salary can feel blatantly discouraged or even downright rude. I challenge you to rethink this initial feeling that you aren't supposed to bring money up.  Salary is never a“set” compensation, or we would all be making about the same.  Learn from my naivete: my first job was with a large group practice, and at my interview I was presented with a package number and wording similar to "doctors at our company start at this base salary."  It was a very fair compensation, and the way it was presented really garnered a feeling that this was the salary, take it or leave it.  I even embarrassingly told other student ODs I was mentoring at the time that asked me how I had managed my salary negotiations that it wasn't possible to negotiate in my position. I found out not long after my employment began that of course, not all new ODs were making the same at my workplace and I had just fallen into the oh-so-predictable "she probably won't ask" category of new hires.  I'm not blaming my employers; they were just being good business men.  Why pay more if I'm willing and happy to work for the initial offer? We have to look at ourselves if we are unhappy with pay inequality; we have to be willing to ask about pay, even when we think it is uncomfortable or not likely to make a difference. And who is doing the asking? Male students are 8 times more likely to negotiate their starting salary offer than female students. Ask and you will probably receive, it seems.  Some of you may be thinking, well if I'm happy with my pay isn't that good enough?  I get your point, but pay means a lot more than just income. Don't we have the same amount of debt as our male cohorts in this profession?  So why are we letting them pay it off faster than us by accepting the status quo? 

So whether you are applying with a larger corporate chain, or joining up with a solo private practice owner, make sure you view the initial salary offer as a launching point for discussion in all scenarios.  Take a moment to let that sink in.  Begin your job search with the mindset that every single part of the job offer posted is open to discussion, no matter what you see in print. If you don't, I can guarantee you that another doctor will and you'll become just another statistic feeding our gender pay gap in optometry.  Women are taking over this profession by the numbers, but let's make 2016 the year that we become truly equal! 

So now you know why we need to negotiate starting salary, but do you know how?  Check back for the next installment of our Women In Focus series!