I am in my second week of Spring Semester 2014 and things are really starting to pick up again. Our professors have jumped right into their material last Wednesday and we are knee-deep in lectures to study already. But I still love it all! It is so great to be back with all of my friends. I didn’t realize how close I have become with so many of classmates (since we spend nearly every waking hour together) until we all went our separate ways for Christmas break. So needless to say I was beyond excited to be reunited with everyone and to catch up once again. The exciting news this week is that yesterday was the first day that I got to actually be in the Clinic!
During our first semester we took a class called Primary Care Testing where we learned how to do several tests on patients before they will be seen by the actual doctor. We learned how to test a patient’s visual acuities, test their color vision, to take their blood pressure, to read the prescription on their glasses and to perform a few computerized tests that examine their peripheral vision.
I got to put all of these new skills to use yesterday right in the middle of the Primary Vision Care Clinic at the College. I was paired up alongside of a Third Year Optometry Student Intern who did the exam and underneath of an attending Doctor in the Clinic. I have worked in a private practice of Optometry for over four years so I should not have been nervous to perform the pre-tests, but I will admit that I was slightly nervous. I think that this was because it was an entirely new situation and really was a big deal to be in the clinic rather than in the classroom in the basement. These nerves were quickly calmed when I met my third year student and realized how well the semester was going to go. The student was so great to me! She guided me very well on what she expected of me to do to help her with the exam. She was also great at telling me what she was looking for as she was doing all of her examinations on the patient. Specifically during her slit lamp examination of the patient she was very descriptive at what she was seeing and I could look through the teaching tube to see the same things. I became very excited to have remembered so much from my first semester of Ocular Anatomy, Physiology, and General Anatomy courses to understand nearly everything that she was telling me about.
Overall, it was a very exciting day and has been a great start to the year! I am very excited for all of my classes this semester and look forward to giving you all another update soon!