The petition
Dear Dr. Agnese,
The purpose of this letter is to bring light to a recent statement made by you in a March 13th article entitled "Medical Forte" in the business section of Express News/MySA.com. We believe this statement to be false, misleading, exaggerated, void of factual base, unprofessional, and irresponsible. Furthermore, there is a question as to whether the statement was made with the purpose of boosting interest in the new School of Optometry at UIW.
Your statement, "an Optometrist in Texas can expect to make $150,000 a year immediately after graduation" is troubling to many in the profession of Optometry. We challenge you to make known the facts that led you to make such a statement. We believe that such facts do not exist. Irresponsible claims, such as this, create unrealistic and lofty expectations for students considering the various graduate health professions. Perhaps, this was the purpose of your statement. Creating lofty, all be unrealistic, expectations for new graduates could only help increase the number of applicants to UIW. However, increasing the number of applicants is no justification for the dissemination of false information.
Dr. Agnese, we encourage you to conduct your own informal interview of the Class of 2007 from the University of Houston College of Optometry. Their personal experiences would reveal starting salaries of Optometrists well below your statement.
As you know, the UIW Mission states “The faculty and students support one another in the search for and the communication of truth.” We ask you to honor that Mission and retract your statement and pledge to only disseminate future statements that are based solely on truthful and well-researched facts.
Sincerely,
Russell A. Beach, O.D. and Co-Petitioners
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