- Candidates announce 2025 election bids for AOA Board of Trustees
- Patient success stories drive awareness and action
- Introducing a brand-new member benefit
- Optometry’s Meeting gives students, recent grads a leg up in the field
- Rebuilding with Optometry’s Fund for Disaster Relief
- Advanced optometric education for an evolving scope of practice
- Case study: When doctor burnout becomes an ethical issue
- Cutting-edge education at Optometry’s Meeting 2025 in Minneapolis
- Optometry’s ‘pioneers’ come together to advance optometry
- 5 things to know about Optometry’s Meeting 2025
- Opportunities in Optometry Grants deliver fresh perspectives and enthusiasm
- ACOE Standards updates take effect: What they mean for optometric education programs
- Show off your unique cases, research at this year’s Optometry’s Meeting
- The AOA Foundation empowers optometry’s future in 2024
- AOA disaster fund provides shot in arm to devasted practices
- Seeding change
- New Year’s resolutions come to life at Optometry’s Meeting 2025
- Field Notes: Florida doctor recounts hurricanes Helene, Milton
- AOA Foundation makes emergency appeal for doctors, students in Helene-ravaged states
- AOA drives national discourse on optometry and importance of in-person eye care
- 4 steps you can take to be part of AOAs national pediatric eye health and vision mobilization
- ‘What more can I do:’ Change Agents ready to advance myopia care
- Deadline extended: Submit comments on AOA policy statement on telemedicine in optometry
- Eye Deserve More highlights power of the eye at groundbreaking NYC pop-up
- Leadership Institute advances leadership in the optometric profession
- ‘You can and will rise above’
- ACOE: Ensuring quality optometric education
- AOA president highlights importance of eye exams for classroom success
- AOA gathers optometry's leaders for open discussion on accreditation of continuing education
- Discover Music City
- Dangerous weather is on the horizon: what to know
- Optometry's Meeting Live News Updates 2024
- Fixin’ for a grand ole show at Optometry’s Meeting
- Interested in optometric clinical, scientific research?
- Candidates announce 2024 election bids for AOA Board of Trustees
- Seeing the Eclipse, and the AOA, Everywhere
- Optometric surgical procedures highlighted at this year’s Optometry’s Meeting
- Leading AI authority Tom Lawry to keynote Optometry’s Meeting
- ‘Change is the new status quo’
- Cranking up the volume on this year’s educational opportunities at Optometry’s Meeting
- Unlocking opportunities: Why you should attend Optometry's Meeting 2024
- AOA leaders resolute on advocacy priorities in 2024
- Eye Deserve More highlights eye health at work and play
- Call for abstracts now open: ePosters and Residency Forum
- Testing dates for paraoptometric certification set for 2024
- 20 stories that defined 2023
- Standing strong so others can rest from trauma, disasters
- Setting the tone for Optometry’s Meeting in Music City
- 3 events in 2023 that show why giving to InfantSEE is vital
- Through the eyes of students
- ‘Opportunities’ grants offer students and profession means to grow
- USDE approval could mark ACOE’s 71 years of continuous federal recognition
- ‘Very close-knit community,’ Maui reckons with trauma of historic wildfires
- OptometryStudents.com refresher upgrades resource for future optometrists
- Have course ideas, will travel? Answer the AOA’s call for courses
- Historic and high-energy meeting of optometry’s minds
- Optometry's Meeting Live News Updates
- Optometry's Meeting News Page
- Discover the District
- Candidates announce 2023 election bids for AOA Board of Trustees
- Optometry’s Meeting® announces keynote speaker
- Developing tomorrow’s leaders
- Leaders Summit 2023
- call for abstracts
- Optometrys Meeting 2023 Keep up with contemporary optometry through continuing education
- FTC announces proposal ban on noncompete clauses
- 3 reasons to attend Optometry's Meeting 2023 in Washington, D.C.
- Eye Deserve More sees success
- ACOE’s rigorous accreditation process safeguards standards for optometric education
- Top 20
- help optometry weather the storm
- Voice Your Vision at Optometry’s Meeting in Washington, D.C.
- Raising optometry’s profile on influential panel
- AOAPlus aims for new heights
- The AOA team
- 2022 Opportunities in Optometry Grants
- ACOE expands council to manage increasing demands for residency programs
- AOA partners with professional game Jordan Fisher
- What members want AOA to prioritize
- AOA elects new Board of Trustees, approves resolutions, as Optometry’s Meeting 2022 wraps up
- AOA strong, optometry advancing leaders report from AOA Congress
- 2022 Optometrys Meeting open
- Shields up: U.S. health care system warned of Russian cyberthreat
- 5 reasons to attend Optometrys Meeting
- Save Your Vision Month 2022
- Collaborative courses OM
- Sign up for education-forward courses at Optometry’s Meeting 2022
- New ePoster format enhances participation, visibility of optometric research
- severe weather prompt renewed OFDR support
- 5 things AOA membership brought me
- Actions speak louder than words
- Eye Deserve More uses patient stories to reinforce the essential care doctors deliver
- AOA officers resolve to make 2022 most successful year yet
- Leadership Institute 2021 wrapup
- Save the date-Optometrys Meeting 2022
- ACOE accreditation: Ensuring optometric degree programs make the grade
- Opportunities in Optometry grant program makes difference for students
- projects fuel eye health vision care outreach
- Optometry's Fund for Disaster Relief Ida support
- CE, professional development for the 21st-century optometry practice
- Ida aftermath
- COVID-19 and a new school year
- Optometry Fund Disaster Relief is alway ready
- AOA campaign spreads the message that all deserve the care AOA doctors provide
- 2022 Call for Courses
- Seeing Beyond the Pandemic underscores criticality of children’s eye, vision care
- Optometry’s Meeting promise delivered
- AOA shares progress made toward diversity, equity and inclusion
- AOA Congress elects 2021-2022 Board of Trustees, approves resolutions
- Focus on recovery, renewal and the future at Optometry’s Meeting 2021
- Optometry’s Meeting 2021 reunites, reignites
- Explore the Optometrys Meeting host city of Denver
- Linenger named Optometrys Meeting keynote speaker
- Rethinking reimagining redoing how optometry learns
- Inaugural-Opportunities-in-Optometry-Grants-awarded
- OM2021 Education
- Optometrys Meeting 2021 Registration
- Diversity-Optometrys Reflection
- Optometrys Meeting 2021 changes venue
- Save Your Vision Month
- AOA launches Leadership Institute
- 2021 Leaders Summit recap
- AOA-AOSA Opportunities in Optometry Grant program
- AOA membership has benefits
- The most-read stories of 2020
- Doctors still making sacrifices as pandemic spreads
- House of Delgates-Successes amid very turbulent year
- Renee Brauns steps down
- HEHC grants support children’s vision projects
- Call for Courses
- COVID-19 recovery funds available for financially stressed doctors of optometry
- AOA secures optometrys access to 1.69 billion in COVID-19 relief
- Unprecedented human impact of western wildfires
- Defeating the debt
- AOA task force takes steps to open opportunities for doctors of color
- AOA launches new website
- AFOS celebrates five decades of delivering eye care through federal services
- HEHC community grants for eye health and vision care projects
- Dust cloud in the Gulf coast states
- Mask policy considerations for your practice
- AOA Foundation extends helping hand damaged practices
- AOA 2020 Virtual Learning Livecast
- focus earns gold circle award
- Doctors of optometry weigh how to hit the ground running once practices reopen
- Optometry Meeting canceled due to COVID-19
- Self-care in times of crisis
- AOA COVID-19 crisis relief recovery assistance
- Optometry elevating women
- Encourage patients to Start With Eye
- AOAPlus wants you in Washington
- patients see eye doctor in winter
- Improved care coordination doctor staff education
- Leaders Summit 2020 Advocacy
- hold companies accountable patients health
- Presidents Council
- cant miss continuing education opportunities at Optometrys Meeting 2020
- AOA membership strength in numbers
- 2020 moment into movement
- Top 20 stories in 2019
- Optometry Cares grant
- Optometry-Meeting-2020-calander-save-dates
- Optometry’s Fund for Disaster Relief eyes million mark
- InfantSEE student program stirs passion for pediatric care
- Mark McGrath to headline celebration at Optometrys Meeting 2020
- 2020-the year of the eye exam
- HEHC grants to children vision projects
- Championing childrens eye care
- Looking ahead
- AOA turning a moment into a movement
- Think About Your Eyes data shows eye care message received
- Optometrys Meeting 2019 Day 3
- Optometrys Meeting 2019 Day 2
- Change at the top
- Samuel D Pierce-Plotting a course
- Fathers Day-Hennen
- Hurricane Preparedness
- AOA is always on its media game
- United in Possibilities Gold Circle Award
- May is Healthy Vision Month
- AOA 2019 award winners
- 2019 National Optometry Hall of Fame Inductees
- NBEO settles class action lawsuit
- HPI Health Centers
- The Future is Female
- AOA’s 74th president, profession leader dies
- Bringing care to communities
- Optometrys Meeting-Johnny Cupcakes
- Saving vision is what we do
- AOA task force leads evolution of education for future of optometric practice
- AOA volunteers gather to plan for 2019 and big 2020 initiative
- Government shutdowns trickle-down effects
- Building for the future
- Care models of success
- 2018 most viewed stories
- Healthy Eyes Healthy Children grants program makes eye health and vision care a tradition
- InfantSEE program heartens students elevates pediatric care
- InfantSEE helps ensure a lifetime of healthy vision
- AOA Foundation fund provides relief for doctors of optometry after disasters
- High educational professional standards go hand-in-hand
- After disaster strikes
- In honor of Veterans
- Nutty Nutrition & Eye Health
- NOVA optometry school naming rights
- Surgeon General spotlights opioid abuse AOA offers doctors reference guide
- Florence eyes Carolinas doctors prepare for worst
- Learning for a lifetime
- 2018 HEHC grants go to children’s vision projects
- Redding doctor depicts historic wildfire
- Be involved
- Athlete endorsement boosts TAYEs connection to essential family health
- Ruling allows lawsuit against NBEO to proceed
- AOSA celebrates 50 years
- House of Delegates resolves action
- New AOA officers and trustees
- OM 2018 down to business
- Optometric Research Summit 2018
- Research Summit 2018
- opening 2018 Optometrys Meeting
- Passing the baton
- Kids vision project flourish
- Seamless transition ahead for AOA leadership
- Carving a career track with student loan debt
- Sunglasses slit-lamps among ophthalmic standards revisions
- Owning Save Your Vision Month
- JanFeb18_President
- 2018 Volunteer Meeting
- Educational Standards
- 2018 Presidents Council
- Mentoring supports next-gens
- 2017-most-read-Stories
- Think About Your Eyes caps off big year
- HEHC End of Year 2017
- InfantSEE program can make a difference to infants futures
- OFDRyear
- Aron Ralston
- The new doctor playbook
- Part of the solution
- Puerto Ricos dire situation
- Practice matters not place
- Recapturing the buzz of the inaugural AOAPLUS
- Howie Mandel
- Irma Aftermath
- Hurricane Irma Preparation
- HEHC grants
- Data Breach NBEO Lawsuit
- Harvey Stories
- UPDATE Hurricane Harvey leaves widespread devastation AOA leading donation effort
- Solar Eclipse Local ODs Outreach
- TAYE breakthrough commercials
- Solar eclipse protect those peepers
- VISION USA Pilot Rollout
- Hackwrap
- vision usa service awards
- highlights from Optometrys Meeting
- Optometrys Meeting wraps up
- OM in full swing
- Attendees dive in OM 2017
- AOAplus invigorates optometrys next generation
- Every doctor is an advocate
- Strong and stable AOA will transition leadership
- Stressing care in pediatric eye vision care
- AOA members make a difference through volunteer service
- AOAPlus on track to shatter attendance figures
- AOA headquarters renovation earns distinction
- Basketball national champion of sports eye injuries
- AOA emerging leaders experience
- Save Your Vision Month targets blue light blues
- AOA and US Postal Service partnering again
- Mind the gap do women docs make quarters on the dollar
- Optometrys advocates strategize to meet professional challenges ahead
- AOA Board local officials commemorate new headquarters facility
- During National Mentoring Month doctors of optometry pay it forward
- Profession leaders exchange best practices network
- Think About Your Eyes delivers results
- Top 20 AOA stories of 2016
- Support Archives Museum of Optometry
- Renovation of AOA national headquarters complete
- InfantSEE opens eyes of providers and parents
- Support VISION USA
- AOA leaders reinforce optometrys propatient message in nations capital
- Preserving optometrys heritage one frame at a time
- Colorblind fans flag NFL on jersey gaffe
- Vision USA helps doctors extend the power of their practice
- Renovation of AOA national headquarters now underway
- Campers experience arts and nature through senses other than sight
- ACOE seeks comment on standards revisions
- The art of collaboration
- River blindness treatment receives Nobel Prize
- optometry ranked no 10 among 20 best paying jobs for women
- Doctor of optometry explains the great dress debate
- Hymes Brauns appointed to top staff positions
- AOAs Renee Brauns named one of opticals most influential women
- Optometry's Meeting Live News Updates
- Optometry's Meeting Live News Updates
- Discover the District
Doctors of optometry on how to enjoy Oct. 14 eclipse in a safe way
September 14, 2023
The AOA has a number of members-only resources for doctors of optometry to share with their patients who hope to view the Oct. 14 eclipse. The resources cover how optometrists can engage the public on seeing it safely.
Tag(s): Inside Optometry, AOA News
As a preteen growing up in the 1970s, Karl Citek, O.D., M.S., Ph.D., recollects making a pinhole camera out of a small cardboard box in order to view a partial eclipse over New York City.
“I don't remember exactly what year it occurred,” Dr. Citek says now. “But I know that even then we were warned not to look directly at it. Eclipse glasses were not readily available then as they are today. The experience, and the moon landings at the time, cemented my desire to learn more about space, the (NASA) space program and science in general!”
The first eclipse that Tyson Brunstetter, O.D., Ph.D., MBA, remembers took place in the mid-1980s. He was about 12 years old.
“We had talked about the eclipse at school for weeks beforehand, and I was extremely excited to see it,” says Dr. Brunstetter, who is now an aerospace optometrist at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. “But I didn’t have any eclipse glasses. Easy solution: I built a simple pinhole projector to view the eclipse indirectly, and it worked perfectly. This was one of my first introductions to the science of optics, and I guess I’ve been hooked ever since. I think I was as impressed with the pinhole viewer as I was with the solar eclipse.”
Some things don’t change—one, both doctors of optometry still appreciate the celestial event and, two, they heed the warnings about not staring directly at an eclipse. But now Drs. Citek and Brunstetter are the ones giving the sage advice on watching eclipses.
On Oct. 14, an annular solar eclipse will occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth while it is at its farthest point from Earth. Because the Moon is farther away from Earth, it appears smaller than the Sun and does not completely cover the star—creating a “ring of fire” effect. The eclipse will be visible across the North, Central and South Americas. In the U.S., its path of annularity (about 125 miles wide including 6.6 million people, according to Dr. Citek) will be from the coast of Oregon to the Texas Gulf Coast. (Mark your calendars for April 8, 2024, for a total solar eclipse.)
View the eclipse safely
The eclipse may be free but there could be a price to pay—if eclipse watchers don’t take the proper precautions to see the show in the sky safely.
“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love the experience of a solar eclipse,” Dr. Brunstetter says. “But simple safety precautions need to be followed to protect our fragile retinas during the event. This is especially true for children who might be tempted to stare at the eclipse with an unprotected eye. The eye’s optical components are designed to capture visible light, to greatly condense it and to focus it directly on the retina; this initiates the process that we call ‘vision.’ But when extreme light levels—like those coming directly from the sun—pass through the eye, the highly-focused beam has the potential to burn the retina and induce an area of permanent vision loss.”
Dr. Citek agrees. Wearing eye protection is “common sense,” he says. And what happens if you don’t?
“After a few seconds, there will be an afterimage, like when looking directly at a camera flash, which can last for many minutes afterward,” Dr. Citek says. “After a few minutes, there will be solar retinopathy, in which the sun's rays that are focused on the retina (usually in the macula) actually causes permanent damage and thus blindness on that part of the retina. Someone with even mild solar retinopathy can then have best corrected vision of no better than about 20/40—worse in more serious cases. Looking at the sun on the horizon at sunrise or sunset without special protection is fine; an eclipse is not the same thing, even if it seems that light level might be the same or less."
Here are some tips from the AOA for safely viewing the annular eclipse:
Get the proper eye wear: “We tell patients they’ve got to use the proper eye filters—the ISO-designated, certified eclipse glasses (ISO12312-2),” says Dr. Citek who presented on the subject of safely viewing the upcoming eclipse at Pacific University College of Optometry in Oregon where he is a professor of optometry.
Technique of the pros. Before looking up at the eclipse, stand still and cover your eyes with your eclipse glasses or solar viewer. After viewing, turn away and then remove your glasses or viewer—do not remove your viewing glasses while looking at the Sun. If you normally wear glasses, wear your eclipse glasses over them.
Be aware of harmful solar exposure: There is no substitute for the proper eye wear—not sunglasses, telescopes or binoculars unless they are fitted with the proper solar filter on the front (objective) lens, Dr. Citek warns. Staring at the sun without protection can result in damage to the retina (solar retinopathy).
Visit your doctor of optometry. Check in with your doctor of optometry for information about safely viewing the eclipse. If you experience any problems with your eyes or vision after the eclipse, your optometrist will be able to provide you with the medical care you need. To find a doctor of optometry near you, visit the AOA's doctor locator. Symptoms of potential damage to the eyes include loss of central vision, distorted vision and altered color vision.
Some sunscreen might be in order too, says Dr. Brunstetter who also recommended reviewing additional safety precautions on websites by the American Astronomical Society and NASA.
“You might be outside for hours, so make sure to apply sunscreen and wear a hat,” he says.
Seeing an eclipse is cool but also educational. In 2017, NASA collected data from nearly a dozen studies on a total solar eclipse.
“I’m not directly involved in NASA’s solar eclipse research, but I’ve always been interested in NASA efforts of any flavor,” Dr. Brunstetter says. “It turns out that total solar eclipses provide an excellent opportunity for scientists to study the faint, outermost portion of the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona. The corona usually isn’t visible unless the Sun’s intense light is blocked. That sounds like a great excuse to view a solar eclipse.”
Resources for practices
View AOA members-only resources for educating the public on how to see the eclipse safely, including an infographic on safety tips for viewing the eclipse, a sample email or newsletter, sample press release, media posts and social graphics (both animated and static images).
For more information, visit the American Astronomical Society’s (AAS) website. To download fact sheets from the AAS, click here. For the Spanish version, click here.