As others have noted: Your experience (or rather, your wife's experience) seems to be about the difference between seeing an optometrist and an ophthalmologist

As others have noted: Your experience (or rather, your wife's experience) seems to be about the difference between seeing an optometrist and an ophthalmologist. I don't know if the optometrist she saw was unusually incompetent or if any optometrist would have done the same, but in any case, everyone she dealt with was a "professional" (even if, maybe, different professions. These big box retailers are not - and can not - hire people without qualifications to provide these services. I think you may be drawing an unsound conclusion here.