CHAPTER 505

An Act to amend and reenact § 54-888 of the Code of Virginia, relating
to grounds for revocation of certificate or censure of holders of cer-
tificates in optometry.

[S 182}
Approved April 4, 1968

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
1. , ina § 54-388 of the Code of Virginia be amended and reenacted
as follows:
§ 54-888. Grounds for revocation of certificate or censure
of holder.—The Board shall revoke or suspend a certificate of registration
or exemption, or censure the holder of such certificate, for any of the
following causes:

1. Grounds generally.—(a) If the holder thereof is in default in the
payment of his yearly license for more than thirty days after being notified
of such default by registered letter sent to his last known place of ad-

ress;

(b) If such person is guilty of fraud or deceit in his practice ;

(c) If such person has been convicted of a felony or other crime
involving moral turpitude;

d f such person is an habitual drunkard or is incompetent to
practice optometry ;

(e) If such person has been guilty of fraud or deceit in the answer-
ing of any question required to be answered as to his qualification for
the purpose of being admitted to examination or in the procuring of 2
certificate to practice optometry ;

(f) If such person employs an unlicensed person to do anything for
which a certificate to practice optometry is required ;

(x) If such person practices optometry while suffering from any
infectious or contagious disease;

(h) If such person neglects or refuses to display his certificate and
the renewal receipt for the same for the current year, as required by

§ 54-386 for more than thirty days after being required to do so by writ-
ten notice given him by any member of the Board;

(i) If such person refuses or neglects to issue the bill of purchase
required in § 64-387 when practicing outside of or away from hi
office ;

(j) If such person engages in the house to house soliciting for the
purpose of fitting or selling or peddling spectacles, eyeglasses or lenses.

2. Unprofessional conduct.—The following acts shall be deemed un-
professional conduct on the part of the holder of a certificate of registra-
tion to practice optometry :

(a) The obtaining of any fee by fraud or misrepresentation or the
practice of deception or fraud upon any patient;

(b) The employment of any person to solicit from house to house
the sale of eyeglasses, spectacles, lenses, frames, mountings or optometric
services or examinations;

(c) The conducting or employment of any person to conduct a house
to house canvass for the purpose of selling, advertising or soliciting the
sale of spectacles, eyeglasses, lenses, frames, mountings or optometric
services or examinations;

(d) The advertising directly or indirectly the following: State-
ments as to skill or method of practice of any person or of any optometrist;
in any manner that will tend to deceive, mislead or defraud the public;
to claim professional superiority; to offer free optometrical services or
examinations; to set forth any amount, price, premium, gift, discount or
terms for professional services or for eyeglasses, spectacles, lenses, frames,
mountings or any other prosthetic devices ;

(e) The employment, hiring, procuring, or inducing a person not
licensed to practice optometry to so practice;

(f) The aiding or abetting in the practice of optometry any person
not duly licensed to practice in this State;

(g) The advertising, practicing or attempting to practice optometry
under a name other than one’s own name as set forth on the certificate
of registration;

(h) The lending, leasing, renting or in any other manner placing
his certificate of registration at the disposal or in the service of any
person not licensed to practice optometry in this State;

(i) The splitting or dividing of a fee with any person or persons
other than with a duly registered optometrist who is a legal partner.

(j) But nothing contained in this statute shall prohibit any regis-
tered optometrist from practicing optometry as a full-time employee on
the premises of any commercial or mercantile establishment and from
advertising, either himself or through such commercial or mercantile
establishment, that he is a duly registered optometrist and offering to
practice optometry as an employee of such commercial or mercantile estab-
lishment.

(k) No registered optometrist shall practice optometry as an em-
ployee, directly or indirectly, of any commercial or mercantile establish-
ment nor shall he so advertise himself or through such commercial or mer-
cantile establishment, unless such commercial or mercantile establishment
was employing a full-time registered optometrist in its established place of
business on June twenty-first, ninteen hundred and thirty-eight.

(l) The violation of such other standards of unprofessional conduct
as may be adopted as rules by the Board.

3. Association with optometrist violating chapter.—The continuance
of an optometrist directly or indirectly in the employ of or in association
with any optometrist, after he has knowledge that such optometrist
is engaged in violation of the provisions of this chapter.