Last day as an intern!
May 12, 2010
Today was my last day of work as an intern...ever! I must say that my fourth year was the fastest of them all. It seemed like not too long ago when I was relishing my freedom as a fourth year intern, but now I am done with all my training, I now have true freedom! It will be interesting to see how it will be like to see patients without having to have things checked by an attending. But many of the things I have seen have already been pretty routine so I feel fairly confident with my training. I know that like many things in life, schooling is only the basis for more learning. However, I will be in a residency so that will give me more opportunity to grow in my clinical abilities since I'll have mentored training. So all we have now is just a week full of seminars, corporate sponsored lunches/dinners, and meetings...then next Friday is the moment we have all been waiting for...graduation!!!
Scleral depression
April 23, 2010
This past Wednesday I had a patient with a retinal hole, so I performed a technique called scleral depression. Basically what happens is that a small blunt ended instrument - usually a thin metal rod, or a even a cotton-tipped applicator - is pressed onto the eye either directly onto the globe or indirectly against the outer skin of the eyelid. What happens is that the tip applies pressure onto the retina from the outside and creates a greyish bump as you view inside the eye with the BIO.
NBEO III coming up soon
April 04, 2010
On this coming Saturday, I'll be taking my third and last part of the optometry national boards. Previously it was taken as a two-part exam, the Patient Assessment and Management (PAM) portion, which was written, and the Clinical Skills Examination (CSE) portion, which is a hands-on practical. However, the new Part II (which I took last December) has the PAM portion embedded into it so now Part III is just the CSE. This exam is a four station practical, 30 minutes each, that tests on different clinical skills (you can see the different skills in this link here).
Pretty much all of the skills on this exam are techniques that we have been doing since we started working in the clinic, so the techniques are not really that difficult. However, the challenging part of this exam is the fact that we are not doing the techniques in the order we are used to, and we have to be able to tell our findings at certain points and in a certain way. Overall though, students at SCCO has been very successful in passing Part III - we've historically had something like a 98-99% pass rate (don't quote me on this). I'm not surprised with this because the techniques we learned has been drilled in our heads repeatedly, and also we had the mother of all proficiencies (aka 12 Station - see past blogs). So proficiencies are second nature to us! However, I've been practicing the procedures (especially in the manner in which we are tested) just to make sure I won't be that 1%...! Once the exam is done, I'll make sure to update you all on how it goes down.
Oh and one more thing - Happy Easter everyone!
Pretty much all of the skills on this exam are techniques that we have been doing since we started working in the clinic, so the techniques are not really that difficult. However, the challenging part of this exam is the fact that we are not doing the techniques in the order we are used to, and we have to be able to tell our findings at certain points and in a certain way. Overall though, students at SCCO has been very successful in passing Part III - we've historically had something like a 98-99% pass rate (don't quote me on this). I'm not surprised with this because the techniques we learned has been drilled in our heads repeatedly, and also we had the mother of all proficiencies (aka 12 Station - see past blogs). So proficiencies are second nature to us! However, I've been practicing the procedures (especially in the manner in which we are tested) just to make sure I won't be that 1%...! Once the exam is done, I'll make sure to update you all on how it goes down.
Oh and one more thing - Happy Easter everyone!
