and varied on the places in which they work. So some of the places which optometrists can

work can be in a hospital setting, like an HMO, they can be in a private practice where

you're essentially your own boss. You can be in a group practice where you have multiple

optometrists working together. Some optometrists are employed by surgeons called ophthalmologists.

Some optometrists choose to work in a more retail setting and there are other optometrists

that choose to work within the industry, and so they work as consultants to contact lens

manufacturers or lens manufacturers. And so because there's a wide range of jobs optometrists

can carry, the salary range is pretty wide too. So that range is usually somewhere between

eighty thousand to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Now most optometrists, when

they first get their foot in the door, their salary is at the lower end of that range until

they've entered the profession and have been there for awhile and their earning potential

goes up. Obviously optometrists that work in private practices or group practices may

have a higher ceiling, relative to other optometrists that work within a hospital system. The field

is definitely growing because of the aging population here in the States. You know the

need for vision care will always be there and so therefore the need for optometrists

will continue to grow.