One of the most important things you'll ever learn in optometry school (well really, about patient care in general) is that there is always more than one way to go about with a technique, treatment, procedure, etc. For example, we learn how to refract (use the phoroptor to get a glasses prescription) in a certain way from our Clinical Methods classes, but we find out from the 4th years and the staff docs of all sorts of ways to refract the patient. For example, we learned that we are to show the patient multiple lines of letters when refracting, but some doctors like to present one line at a time so that the patient won't read the whole entire chart every time. Another example is how everybody has their own technique of prescribing an add (which is used for presbyopes - those who can't see well up close due to older age). At first I was frustrated with how my classmates and I had to learn a certain way to do things and all of a sudden we have to change what we are so used to. After a while, I saw it as an opportunity to develop my own technique - a way to pretty much define ourself apart from the other clinicians, really. Furthermore, clinic gives plenty of opportunity to experiment and find out what works and what doesn't.
That's the bottom line really, you'll find that there is no one way of doing the techniques you learn here in optometry school. The correct way is basically whatever is most efficient and at the same time works for you...of course it has to work for the patient as well! The irony, however, is that the way you do certain techniques in clinic are not the same as how you do them during some of the proficiencies we will have (and had) here. For example, the way we refract for the upcoming 12 station proficiency is supposed to be the procedure we learned in our Clinical Methods classes; we can't refract the patient in the way we developed ourselves in clinic. As far as I know, this holds true for our boards. I came to realize, very quickly, that even though students are tested a certain way, they will always change up the procedure differently from what we need to do for standardized tests, especially when they practice as a doctor in the future...an unfortunate reality, but hey that's life I guess...it's all about jumping hoops right?
Developing your own technique
June 29, 2008Brief update on this past week
June 22, 2008
Fullerton has been pretty hot lately! It's been around the mid to high 90s and wearing clinic clothes while carrying all sorts of equipment can be no fun especially right before you get into clinic to see patients. Adjusting to clinic has gotten slightly better but there's still a long way to go. I do however enjoy the fact that we have a much lighter lecture load so that helps a lot. Did I mention by the way that every other week us 3rd years have optical duty? My shift happens to be on Saturday mornings. Yes, Saturdays are no longer truly free, and it turns out that since we did our schedule picks for the Fall, I found that I am working in the clinic 8 AM - 5 PM on Saturdays. The way our scheduling works is like lottery system, and I ended up with a high number, which meant that I was one of the last ones to choose my schedule. So basically during the Fall, I'll be having six days of school/clinic...oh well, what can I do, I had no choice! This is fine though since Saturdays tend to have a large volume of patients, so I can keep busy and keep up with patient counts.
Patient counts, by the way, are required for every intern here at SCCO. Every single patient interaction, whether it is during a Primary Care exam, a vision screening, or even an observation, must be recorded. Each intern is required to attain a certain quota of patients (I don't know the quota yet, but I'll probably find out later in the quarter). So it helps to get patients that show up because too many no-shows = not enough patient counts. One strategy that we were told was to call the patients to remind them of their appointments - this drastically reduces the amount of no-shows (although the contact lens department requires us to call patients prior to their appointment). Besides that, there really hasn't been much else going on - until next blog, see you then!
Patient counts, by the way, are required for every intern here at SCCO. Every single patient interaction, whether it is during a Primary Care exam, a vision screening, or even an observation, must be recorded. Each intern is required to attain a certain quota of patients (I don't know the quota yet, but I'll probably find out later in the quarter). So it helps to get patients that show up because too many no-shows = not enough patient counts. One strategy that we were told was to call the patients to remind them of their appointments - this drastically reduces the amount of no-shows (although the contact lens department requires us to call patients prior to their appointment). Besides that, there really hasn't been much else going on - until next blog, see you then!
Summer quarter and clinic so far
June 12, 2008
Below is a list of classes that I'm taking this summer...it's a much lighter academic load since we have 12-16 hours of clinic per week. We also have only one lecture exam per week, and this exam schedule holds true for the rest of the third year (woohoo!).
- Cornea and Contact Lenses III: as far as I know, this class will be covering things like complications of contact lens wear, refractive surgery (i.e. LASIK) co-management, more on toric (astigmatic) contact lenses, keratoconus, and Ortho-K.
- Vision, Perception, and Learning: as opposed to Vision Efficiency (which we learned last quarter, involving how the eyes move together and focus effectively), this class involves how vision is perceived. If you look at the image below, it may first appear as random blotches and spots. Take a look:
Source
If you look closely enough, you will see a cow's head (hint: the cow's black ear is on the far left). Did you see it? This concept is related to how the brain will not recognize an object until it has been learned. Based on this, you can see how vision is learned. We may be able to see something, but not necessarily perceive it. This is just one of the concepts that we will be learning in class.
- Pediatric Optometry: eye exams on infants, toddlers, and children have some differences as opposed to doing an exam on adults. They each require special needs that are different from adults. We will be learning all about how to do an eye exam on these types of patients, and we will also learn various aspects of visual and cognitive development in children.
- Practice Management II: we will be learning more about how to manage an optometric practice, with emphasis on communication and marketing. One thing we just learned is that something as simple as recall cards can significantly enhance a practice. If you don't know what a recall card is, it's basically a postcard that is sent to patients that reminds them that their annual eye exam is due. It turns out that this is a VERY important thing to do when running a practice!
- Cornea and Contact Lenses III: as far as I know, this class will be covering things like complications of contact lens wear, refractive surgery (i.e. LASIK) co-management, more on toric (astigmatic) contact lenses, keratoconus, and Ortho-K.
- Vision, Perception, and Learning: as opposed to Vision Efficiency (which we learned last quarter, involving how the eyes move together and focus effectively), this class involves how vision is perceived. If you look at the image below, it may first appear as random blotches and spots. Take a look:
Source
If you look closely enough, you will see a cow's head (hint: the cow's black ear is on the far left). Did you see it? This concept is related to how the brain will not recognize an object until it has been learned. Based on this, you can see how vision is learned. We may be able to see something, but not necessarily perceive it. This is just one of the concepts that we will be learning in class.
- Pediatric Optometry: eye exams on infants, toddlers, and children have some differences as opposed to doing an exam on adults. They each require special needs that are different from adults. We will be learning all about how to do an eye exam on these types of patients, and we will also learn various aspects of visual and cognitive development in children.
- Practice Management II: we will be learning more about how to manage an optometric practice, with emphasis on communication and marketing. One thing we just learned is that something as simple as recall cards can significantly enhance a practice. If you don't know what a recall card is, it's basically a postcard that is sent to patients that reminds them that their annual eye exam is due. It turns out that this is a VERY important thing to do when running a practice!
