Dr. KRASKIN. Yes; not the education requirements but the manner in which a man will practice thereafter. We cannot control a man's morality. Mr. SHIPE. I will get to that later. What I am talking about now is your education requirements. Again, you have read your bill and you have read H. R. 5238. Now, in H. R. 5238 on page 7 it provides that the Board of Optometry by and with the consent and approval of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, may from time to time (a) Establish minimum standards of education in optometry— Are you satisfied with that? Dr. KRASKIN. Yes; correct. Mr. SHIPE (continuing): (b) Establish minimum standards for schools or colleges of optometry in the District of Columbia Are you satisfied with that? Dr. KRASKIN. We are very satisfied with that. Mr. SHIPE (Continuing): (c) Determine whether schools or colleges of optometry in the District of Columbia attain such standards Are you satisfied with that? Dr. KRASKIN. Very, very satisfied. Mr. SHIPE (continuing): (d) Alter, amend, and otherwise change the educational requirements, but in altering, amending, or changing said requirements the Board shall not lower the same. Are you satisfied with that? Dr. KRASKIN. Very satisfied with it. Mr. SHIPE. What other power do you want? Dr. KRASKIN. I am not asking Mr. SHIPE (interposing). So what was your whole tirade about? Dr. KRASKIN. Mr. Rosenberg put into the record that this was not a profession or something of the sort, a skilled trade; and that the education amounted to something like an academic course. And he spoke about degrees which had nothing to do with the degree of knowledge of a man. In England today even a physician gets a master or a bachelor of arts degree. The medicine degree has nothing to do with the situation whatsoever. And still he emphasizes that. Mr. SHIPE. Regardless of what anyone said you are satisfied? Dr. KRASKIN. Well, he represented a corporate institution. Mr. SHIPE. All right. Dr. KRASKIN. He came here and said he was representing a corporate institution. Mr. SHIPE. Regardless of what anyone said you are satisfied with the jurisdiction over education requirements given to the Board under H. R. 5238. Dr. KRASKIN. That is, not fully. Mr. SHIPE. In view of the fact that the Supreme Court in our district has stated that the practice of optometry is a business or a trade and not a profession, it has not affected you at all, now? Dr. KRASKIN. No. I do not agree with the court. Mr. SHIPE. The two vital questions so far as you are concerned, Doctor, I must, like you, confess rather that you want to raise Dr. KRASKIN (interposing). The standards. Mr. SHIPE (continuing). The practice of optometry to a profession on a level with law and medicine? Dr. KRASKIN. No, sir. I do not want to be placed in that position. I am only interested, and my associates with me, and if you will permit me to put into the record the men associated with this workCharles Shean, of the Mayo Clinic, who happens to be chairman of the vocational and commercial committee of the American Medical Association. I am a member of his committee. Dr. Minor, of the University of California. Dr. Woll, of the College of the City of New York and Columbia University. We are interested in the quality of service humanity is to receive. If you can do it in the street or in Kahn's I have no objection. Mr. SHIPE. I declined to interrupt you while you were testifying, I suggest Dr. KRASKIN (interposing). Excuse me. Mr. SHIPE. If you are through with your speech, all right. You and I agree on one thing. That is, you want to raise the standards of the practice of optometry? Dr. KRASKIN. The quality. Mr. SHIPE. All of us want to do that. We think that H. R. 5238 does do it. It gives you the power. Dr. KRASKIN. I do not think so. Mr. SHIPE (continuing). Over educational requirements. Dr. KRASKIN. Over education requirements; yes. Mr. SHIPE. And it gives you under section 8 the right to suspend and revoke licenses for reasons stated therein. Dr. KRASKIN. I do not interpret it like you do. You may be right and I may be wrong. Mr. SHIPE. It gives you the power of suspension or revocation. Dr. KRASKIN. Not after a man is practicing. Mr. SHIPE. For certain reasons. Dr. KRASKIN. For certain minor reasons that have never come up in the Board since 1924. Any of those reasons never come up. We never had one occasion for any of those reasons in the old bill. Still we are not able to do anything about the quality of the service, and so forth. Mr. SHIPE. Well, for what reason would you like to suspend or revoke a license if a man studied, as long as the required studies were obtained, and he passed your examination? What other reasons than those stated in section 8 would you disqualify him for? Dr. MARSHALL. Pardon me, but this has been submitted, Mr. Shipe. Mr. SHIFE. Let me ask the doctor. Dr. KRASKIN. I can answer that, Mr. Shipe. Mr. Shipe, in the first place I do not like to revoke or suspend anybody's license. That is, to begin with. I do know this: I know that a human is weak, and he is. And I know that we cannot control a man's morals or his character or anything along that line and neither do I want the responsibility. Mr. SHIPE. Mr. Chairman, I do not think he is answering the question. Dr. KRASKIN. I am going to answer. Mr. SHIPE. When you get around to it, answer it. Dr. KRASKIN. It is a strange think that when they testified, Mr. Chairman, they were permitted to say what they pleased. Nobody questioned him, Mr. Chairman. Every once in a while when I want to qualify my answers he objects. He objects every time I open my mouth. (Whereupon there was a discussion off the record.) Dr. KRASKIN. I have to qualify my answers. You can go to any man in the District of Columbia and bring evidence before this committee that when any sort of charges were preferred against any man violating that law, if we did not go to the furthest of our extent in defending him and helping him and trying to make him realize the error of his ways and asking him to change. We have never revoked any license but one and then we revoked that because the man did not pay his fees. But the Board has not been able to stop certain things, Mr. Shipe, which you realize, I know that you do not, think, is his purpose. Mr. SHIPE. I am asking you what they are.. Dr. KRASKIN. We first hope to have a check in the relationship to his patient. We have lots of evidence of certain practices. Mr. SHIPE. What is it? Dr. MARSHALL. It has been submitted for the record, Mr. Shipe. Dr. KRASKIN. On H. R. 5238, when the Commissioners were presented with H. R. 5238 for study and they submitted in the record the report. You can see it all in detail. If not, and you want me to read it again I will go through it. Mr. SHIPE. I don't want you to read it. Dr. KRASKIN. I have to give every detail. I will not give a yes or no answer. Mr. SHIPE. I did not ask for a yes or no answer, Mr. Chairman. I simply asked what I think is an entirely correct question. He is objecting to section 8 saying it is not broad enough and he wants to have power to suspend or revoke the licenses of men who have gone through the educational requirements we have set up and who have taken the examination to practice and he wants to have some additional power or reason for revoking and suspending the license of such a man. I want to know what additional reasons there are. The CHAIRMAN. He has a perfect right to object to anything so far as that goes. I believe that the doctor can explain why he is objecting to it, if that is the question. Mr. SHIPE. I am simply asking a question. If he says he does not want to answer it, all right. Dr. KRASKIN. The first is the professional relations. We want that to be raised to see that the public will be protected. Mr. SHIFE. And so do we all, and the Board of Optometry; that is a fact. Mr. LYON. What they say they want, that is not in the record. Dr. MARSHALL. That has been submitted. The CHAIRMAN. Just a minute. One at a time. 162220-39--14 Dr. KRASKIN. Section 8. I will read it through. Mr. Chairman, I did not want to take the time to read it but I will read it. SEC. 8. In order to protect the citizens of the District of Columbia from certain irregularities and evils that have been existing which our present law is not adequate to correct and which this bill only partially rectifies, we suggest: (1) That the following be inserted between (b) and (c), page 9: "That said licensee is unfit or incompetent by reason of negligence." Now, who else can object to that. Who else should object to that? He has a right according to H. R. 278. You want what we recommend. I am telling you about the past experience of the Board, and we have administered the law in the past. You really cannot disprove that. Let me read. Mr. SHIFE. No, no, no. I want to take them up one at a time, if you will. What is your measure, your yardstick, by which you measure negligence? Dr. KRASKIN. Now, for instance-well, it will have to be what type of negligence it was in that particular case. For instance, I think this would be a very serious thing. Mr. Shipe, if a person, a man who is well trained, we examined him and found him qualified to be able to differentiate between a pathological condition and an abnormal condition and his patient has glaucoma. Now, every optometrist should be qualified, and I will tell you I will try to make that as strong as we can, every head of every medical school will tell you that we ought to take every precaution and never really do, to tell the possible patient who walks into his office, has glaucoma. And there are many tests, simple tests, to be certain, which he could make quickly and make correctly and examine that patient very carefully. And when he is certain that the patient hasn't glaucoma then he should go on on any other pathological condition and test his visual needs. But you would be amazed to know how many people lose their sight because of a wrong diagnosis in that respect, and made also on both sides of the fence. There you are going to make me show you proof of that. That is a difficult thing to do. But we know those things. Why, in cases we have records of medical men who tell us if they could have seen so-and-so before someone put a pair of glasses on him first and that condition could have been taken care of easily for him. There are many such conditions, and you and Mr. Rosenberg here in his testimony said "No." But he did not tell you all the contribution which you, that all the employees, optometrists, can make. As an individual you can even save many patient's lives. You don't think I can bring you substantiation of that. And possibly, as Mr. Kaufman tells us, I am not saying he has not done that-I am not talking about any individual. As I say, as a general thing, we ought to have someone to keep the average man competent and keep up with the progress of the times, and so forth, for the patient to be protected. I mean, because in a particular department they are inclined, if you asked me does Mr. Kaufman do it I might say "Yes" to you; I don't know if they do it or not-I mean it in everybody's department. But I do know those things happen. Even members of our society ought to be brought before the Board and are brought, if they do something that the Board can do something about it. We do not limit supervision to nonmembers or corporations. I am not interested in advertising. I do not care if you get paid $2 for glasses or $100 for glasses. Some dentists get $10 and some $200; some physicians charge $25 and others charge $2. I am interested in the quality of service. Mr. SHIPE. What other reasons? Dr. KRASKIN. Other reasons? (2) That the following be inserted between (d) and (e), page 10: "That said licensee is directly or indirectly employed by or associated for the practice of optometry with any person, partnership, or corporation unless it be with a person or partnership all of whose members are licensed to practice optometry under this article, or that said licensee directly or indirectly enters into any contract, agreement, or other arrangement whatsoever, express or implied, to share the proceeds or benefits of whatever nature resulting or accruing from the practice of optometry with any other persons, partnership, or corporation unless it be with a person or partnership all of whose members are licensed to practice optometry under this article ;". Mr. SHIPE. It is perfectly obvious to the committee Dr. KRASKIN (interposing). I have given you my reasons. Mr. SHIPE (continuing) You just want a provision in there, Doctor, that prevents any optometrists from being employed by a corporation? Dr. KRASKIN (continuing). Because I feel Mr. SHIPE (interposing). I mean, that is a fact. Mr. SHIPE. Isn't that what your provision calls for? Dr. KRASKIN. I want to qualify my answer. If you allow me to qualify, I will answer. If you do not allow me to qualify, I cannot answer. There is a reason why I am opposed to corporations practicing optometry. Mr. SHIPE. You have given those. Are there any other provisions? Dr. KRASKIN. Yes; section 3: That the following be used in lieu of (g): "That every registered optometrist who desires to continue the practice of optometry shall annually, on or before the 10th day of January of each year, pay to the secretary-treasu.er of the Board a renewal registration fee to be fixed annually by the Board, not to exceed $15. for which he shall receive a renewal of his certificate. In case of neglect to pay the renewal registration fees as herein provided, the Board shall have authority to revoke such license, and the holder thereof may be reinstated by complying with the conditions specified in this section, but no license may be revoked without giving sixty days' notice to the delinquent. The Board shall only have the right to renew such license on the payment of a renewal fee for each year a renewal fee has not been paid by such applicant, and with penalty of $5 for each such year: Provided, That retirement from practice for a period of five years or more shall deprive the holder of said license of the right to renew the same." I do not want to take up the time of the committee, because I would like to take up one remark, Mr. Chairman, and then be finished. We have heard a great deal that the proponents of H. R. 5238 were also very vitally interested in public health. It is strange that when they copied the clause from H. R. 278 they omitted the last of that clause which stands for the protection of public health. Mr. SHIPE. What provision is that? Dr. KRASKIN. Right here; section 2. In H. R. 278 it says: "In order to safeguard life and health that any person practicing"-and they |