Having recently returned from a trip to Malaysia to help prepare students for their ABDO examinations, it struck me that we may be missing an opportunity to widen our membership and expand our global horizons.
There are many ABDO qualified dispensing opticians (DOs) in Malaysia. Indeed, I was surprised to hear at this year’s graduation ceremony that our partner organisation – the Malaysian Association of Practising Opticians – has graduated more than 1,500 DOs with an FBDO qualification to date. That’s a lot of graduates and a lot of fellow DOs.
Professionally, we do similar jobs, share a professional body and yet we share little else. I have many friends in Malaysia because I have been lucky enough to visit the country and make those connections, but there must be some value in connecting as members across the globe? Is there any appetite to connect members in one country to members in another? Would you like to know what it’s like to work as a DO in another country? Would you share your experience of working as a clinician in the UK?
ABDO is a membership-based organisation and much of the value for me comes from relationships with other members. I believe there could be merit and benefit in UK members having more connections with members in other countries.
As a child, I was allocated a French pen pal at secondary school and we were encouraged to communicate to improve our language skills. We wrote letters and eventually visited each other. In my case, we continued this independently, our families became friends, my parents met his parents, and my sister even went and lived with his family for a couple of years.
Collaboration, communication and friendship are a huge part of the human ‘raison d’etre’ – to quote my French pen pal. Shouldn’t we, as UK clinicians, be reaching out more, engaging and enhancing our mutual professional relationships?