The Graduate Medical Education National Advisory Committee (GMENAC) was charged with the task of advising the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services on overall strategies on the present and future supply and requirements of physicians by specialty and geographic location. In September of 1980, GMENAC submitted its final report to the Secretary. Included in this report are policy directives that were issued in the form of recommendations; several of these recommendations are directed specifically at the independent non-physician health care professions. The potential impact of these recommendations upon the profession of optometry is monumental; and, the authority of GMENAC to issue directives regarding the supply of optometrists and the future requirements of optometric manpower must be challenged.