1971 - 2011: Forty year history of scope expansion into medical eye care.

The focus of this paper is to provide a historical timeline for many of the well over 180 incremental scope of practice expansion and amplification legislative successes achieved in the United States (U.S.) during the 40-year period 1971 - 2011 that cumulatively expanded optometry into medical eye care. This paper also serves to update the historical timeline of scope of practice amplification legislation enacted after the year 1999, which was so comprehensively described up to that point by Dr. Melvin D. Wolfberg.