Officially an Opt III

About a week ago I was typing my last blog entry as a second year student in the midst of finals week. It seems like I blinked and magically became a third year student overnight. Okay, not quite– we had a few days off to relax and recharge before jumping right in with classes and clinic on Monday but still, it felt so quick like flipping a switch. The Class of 2018 is officially in Opt III Clinic! It’s been an exciting and nerve-wracking week, to be honest. I know I’m going to like being in clinic so much but I need to get in a couple more days to get acclimated before I start feeling really comfortable. I can’t wait to update you more on my primary vision care, vision therapy and eyewear gallery summer rotations as I become more acclimated!

I thought I’d just fill you in on a few things from the end of second year since I got a little side-tracked by school, oops! Throughout the semester I was able to see a few more of family and friends as part of Opt II clinic. Each exam was a rewarding experience because I got to show them how much I had learned in the past two years, be it clinical skills or knowledge of their ocular anatomy, refractive error, medications, systemic diseases, etc. Sometimes they’d ask even a simple question and the ability to explain it to them in patient terms was really impressive to them, especially family members! Opt II clinic culminated last month with a final proficiency to assess our preparedness to enter clinic this summer as a third year. Even though it was exactly the same sort of exam I had been doing all semester long, I was so nervous for it because of how much was riding on it. After many encouraging phone calls from my parents, a few timed run-throughs and some yoga style deep-breathing, I took the practical and felt relieved, passed and am in clinic!

When talking about clinic and school in general with a friend a few days ago, she told me that she thinks of stress of a indicator of how much you care about what you do. While I tend to put maybe too much pressure on a certain practical or day in clinic, I agree with her. The feeling stems from wanting to learn how to provide the best patient care possible and be the best doctor I can possibly be.

Now for some non-school related items. In April I was able to travel with a group of about 25 students with my school to represent the American Optometric Association in Washington, D.C. at the Congressional Advocacy Conference. In D.C., we lobbied for bills that are currently in Congress regarding our scope of practice and patient safety and care. I was able to lobby for the state of Ohio, meaning that I went with doctors from the Ohio Optometric Association Board of Trustees to meet with lawmakers from our state to discuss our issues and try to get their support. Not only was it awesome to be able to walk around the Capitol building with a purpose but to do so with doctors who take an active role in bettering our profession was pretty inspiring. The conference helped me to realize how important advocacy is to the government regulated side of optometric care. Plus sight-seeing in our nation’s capitol and making memories with friends from school was pretty awesome too 🙂

One last fun event to note! EYE held its annual bowling tournament a few weeks ago which was just as fun as I remembered it to be last year. While I didn’t really help my team out in the scoring section, I was able to pull together a good costume for our theme and we ended up winning the costume contest (which we were actually more concerned about anyways)! Here’s a pic of winning team, SpEYE Kids.IMG_6768

Okay, that’s all of an update for now. I’ll let you know how clinic is going later on!