“Dear optimist, pessimist, and realist– while you guys were busy arguing about the glass of wine, I drank it! Sincerely, the opportunist!” – Lori Greiner from the show Shark Tank
A lot has happened since my last blog post but time has just been passing by so quickly, it has been hard to get back on here. But I am back with lots of great news to share. This past weekend I had the privilege of attending Vision Expo West in Las Vegas thanks to a scholarship from The Vision Council. Vision Expo West is an Optometry Conference where they bring together all of the Eyewear designers and many other exhibitors to have all of their new products in one place. There are also a lot of great continuing education classes that I was able to sit in on and many networking opportunities where I was able to make great connections from all over the country.
The quote from the beginning of this post is one that I heard this past weekend during one of our student lectures that really got me thinking. The lecture focused on the many opportunities that we have with being an Optometrist and the importance of taking advantage of those when they arise. So this got me thinking about my experiences over the past few months as an Optometry student, and put a huge smile on my face.
Since May I took a big step from a Second Year Optometry Student to a Third Year Student meaning that we went directly into clinic after finals and we began seeing our own patients and have done so all summer long. This has been an amazing experience!!! I have learned an incredible amount while in my 2 half days in Primary Vision Clinic this summer and continue to learn and improve each week in clinic. This summer I also had the opportunity to work in the Eyewear Gallery helping patients pick out glasses and get fitted for them properly. Luckily I had worked in a practice while in undergrad and was very excited to be back helping patients pick out their new glasses once again.
My fourth clinic experience that I had the great opportunity to participate in was the Vision Therapy Clinic. This was yet another amazing experience as it was my first exposure to Vision Therapy and I have found that I really love this aspect of Optometry. It was very exciting to work with patients for 8+ weeks and to celebrate with them as their visual symptoms improved with each visit! I am very excited to learn more about Vision Therapy and hopefully do more with this in my future.
Overall with 4 clinic times and still being in classes it was a very busy summer but by far one of my favorite ones yet. It contained many great opportunities for learning and improvement to really get me started on seeing patients.
Fall Semester began at the end of August and has been off to a great start. This semester I am only in one afternoon of Primary Vision Clinic for now which is a good little breather before I pick up a few more clinics near the end of the semester. With welcoming the First years there were many exciting events and now all of the organizations are getting started up once again providing many more opportunities for us as students. SVOSH (Student Volunteers for Optometric Service for Humanity) students had the opportunity to go to Peru in the beginning of August to see patients in a very underserved area and they got to explore some of Peru while there too. I had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas this past weekend like I said and I will also be going to East/West Eye Conference in Cleveland along with many other students during the first weekend in October for Ohio’s Vision Conference. This Conference too gives us a lot of networking opportunities and chances to learn about the newest and greatest technology in Optometry. And then a good number of our students with be going to the American Academy of Optometry’s meeting in New Orleans in October for yet another great opportunity to see Optometry working on a National level.
In conclusion, after reflecting upon this quote I was truly amazed at all of the opportunities that I have been given and am so thankful for over the past few months. I am thankful to have met and worked with all of the patients that I have thus far. With each patient, I seem to have a unique experience that reminds me why I am working so hard to be here and why I love this profession so much. I had the opportunity to work with kids and adults ranging in ages 8-62 to greatly improve their visual symptoms through therapeutic techniques. I have had the opportunity to help patients pick their new look out for themselves as they chose their new glasses. I had the opportunity to travel to Las Vegas and make so many valuable connections that I am so grateful to have had experienced. And there are many more opportunities just around the corner for us all.
Overall, with the many opportunities as an Optometry student in the classroom to learn from our award winning professors, from our patients encounters in clinic, and the many extracurricular opportunities, it continues to be an exciting time to be an Optometry Student at THE Ohio State University.
#OSUOptometry #GoBuckEYES #visionexpowest