BILL REQ. #:  H-3599.2 

Prefiled 12/15/09. Read first time 01/11/10.   Referred to Committee on Health Care & Wellness.

     AN ACT Relating to permitting regularly enrolled students in a prescribed course of opticianry to practice under supervision without registering as an apprentice with the department of health; and amending RCW 18.34.010.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 18.34.010 and 1957 c 43 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:
     Nothing in this chapter shall:
     (1) Be construed to limit or restrict a duly licensed physician or optometrist or employees working under the personal supervision of a duly licensed physician or optometrist from the practices enumerated in this chapter, and each such licensed physician and optometrist shall have all the rights and privileges which may accrue under this chapter to dispensing opticians licensed hereunder;
     (2) Be construed to prohibit or restrict practice by a regularly enrolled student in a prescribed course in opticianry in a college or university approved by the secretary whose performance of services is pursuant to a regular course of instruction or assignments from an instructor and under the supervision of a licensed dispensing optician, optometrist, or ophthalmologist: PROVIDED, That persons practicing under this section must be clearly identified as students;
     (3) Be construed to prohibit an unlicensed person from performing mechanical work upon inert matter in an optical office, laboratory or shop;
     (((3))) (4) Be construed to prohibit an unlicensed person from engaging in the sale of spectacles, eyeglasses, magnifying glasses, goggles, sunglasses, telescopes, binoculars, or any such articles which are completely preassembled and sold only as merchandise;
     (((4))) (5) Be construed to authorize or permit a licensee hereunder to hold himself out as being able to, or to offer to, or to undertake to attempt, by any manner of means, to examine or exercise eyes, diagnose, treat, correct, relieve, operate or prescribe for any human ailment, deficiency, deformity, disease or injury.