Today, I spoke again with Oklahoma Representative Eric Roberts. He had reached out to me via phone to deliver me the "bad news". Unfortunately, legislation is currently out of session and he will not be able to help until the next session begins. Which means at this time we will be unable to secure our positions as medical assistants in the aesthetic industry before the October 31st, 2024, deadline. He did advise that we keep working on this and speak with the Oklahoma Board of Medicine to see if there is a way to hold the enforcement of this new rule until clarification or specification can be made in some of this new bill's terminology. Once the new session begins he assured me he would be happy to help get this taken care of to the best of his ability. 

However, there is (to me at least) a silver lining. I felt a sense of pride and an extreme amount of gratitude to be able to speak with him, because it showed me just how valuable our voices are to our Oklahoma law makers and legislators. They truly do consider and care what "We the People" have to say. As a born and raised Oklahoman (with the exception of a brief two-year hiatus as an Arkansas resident), I hope to always be able to say how well our senators and representatives take care of us. I do not feel as though this bill was intentionally made to take our jobs, but Rep. Roberts and I both agree that there may be pieces of information that are lost in the translation between medical terminology and legalese and could appear to be more of an oversight that just needs a bit more clarification. Neither language is exactly easy to decipher at times.

So for now, we need to be diligent in remaining engaged and informed. We shall not give up!