Last month, I applied to the Army Optometry Residency in Primary Care at the San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC) in San Antonio, Texas. And today, I just found out that I was selected for the residency! I am extremely excited because it is a perfect fit for me - the program is exactly what I am looking for in a residency. But before I go on about the specifics of the program, let me talk a little about optometry residencies.

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It's been a while since the last update, but there have been many things going on in the last few weeks of my rotation (wedding stuff, the 4th year project, among other things). Also, in the last few days I traveled to Atlanta, GA for the annual Armed Forces Optometric Society (AFOS) meeting. It is an organization that unites the federal service optometrists and provides a voice for them in the legislation. Federal service optometrists comprise of ODs in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Veteran's Affairs, and Public Health Service, and they are under a separate jurisdiction from the states as far as optometric practice goes. In other words, ODs in the federal services do not have a state that they can be associated with as far as state associations, so that is why AFOS was created. So in a sense, AFOS is like the "51st state" which represents all federal service ODs. I came because I am the national student liaison for AFOS so I attended the meeting to represent the students in AFOS. I had a great time - I got to network with many of my future colleagues and sat in several hours of meetings and CE.

Next week will be the beginning of my last rotation...it's been a long journey so far and graduation is coming up super fast! I just ordered my diploma frame and looking at the picture of the sample diploma (and how my own will be framed in the near future) was pretty surreal! This year is very monumental for me since on top of graduation, I'll be getting married, getting promoted as an Army Captain, moving to who knows where (still waiting to find out), and starting off my career/adventure in the Army. What a whirlwind of events!!!