As of December 2014 there were 1,921 optometrists in Australia who held a therapeutic endorsement of a total of 4,749 optometrists with general registration. That is just over 40%.

This is a significant increase of 678 therapeutically endorsed optometrists since the March 2012 data was compiled by the Optometry Board of Australia. In that same period there were only 285 more optometrists with general registration, indicating that it’s not just new graduates who are endorsed, but optometrists continuing in practice who have completed their postgraduate therapeutics training.

The following table shows the percentage of optometrists endorsed for scheduled medicines in March 2012 and 2014, as a function of those with general registration.

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