MOC PQA Optometrist study guide
MOC PQA Optometrist · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The MOC Practice Quality Assessment (PQA) for optometrists is a maintenance-of-certification instrument that asks a licensed optometrist to demonstrate not only current clinical knowledge but also the ability to measure and improve the quality and safety of their own practice. It is designed for optometrists already in active practice who are renewing certification, rather than for students or new graduates entering the field. The MOC PQA Optometrist study guide has 7 sections and about 2,135 words.
01Patient Care and Clinical Management
This domain tests whether you can take a patient from presentation to a defensible plan: triage, history, differential diagnosis, co-management, and documentation. Items often give an incomplete scenario and ask for the next best action rather than a final diagnosis.
361 words, about 2 min02Optometric Examination and Diagnostic Procedures
This domain tests technique, calibration, and interpretation: whether you know what a test actually measures, when it is unreliable, and how to combine results into a coherent assessment. Goldmann applanation tonometry requires fluorescein, correct mire alignment, and a calibrated instrument.
328 words, about 2 min03Ocular Disease and Systemic Conditions
This domain tests recognition, grading, and appropriate urgency across ocular disease and its systemic associations, including medication-induced ocular effects. Non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy is graded by lesion burden.
299 words, about 1 min04Pharmacology and Therapeutics
This domain tests drug selection, mechanism, contraindications, and monitoring. Items commonly ask which agent is inappropriate for a given patient rather than which is most effective.
308 words, about 2 min05Practice-Based Quality Improvement and Patient Safety
This domain tests whether you can improve care systematically and prevent harm, using measurement rather than anecdote. Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles are small, rapid tests of change.
273 words, about 1 min06Professionalism, Ethics, and Communication
This domain tests judgment under competing obligations: consent, confidentiality, scope, honesty, and communication that patients can act on. Valid informed consent requires capacity, disclosure of risks, benefits, and alternatives, and voluntariness.
287 words, about 1 min07Health Promotion, Prevention, and Public Health
This domain tests prevention, screening, and population-level reasoning, including how prevalence changes the meaning of a test result. A screening programme is justified when the condition is important, has an accepted treatment, has a detectable latent stage, and the test is acceptable and affordable.
279 words, about 1 min